Warwick Powell: Japan Risks of Economic Decline and War

Warwick Powell: Japan Risks of Economic Decline and War

Welcome back to the Greater Eurasia podcast. Uh we are joined today by Warwick Powell, an adjunct professor at the University of Queensland and also senior fellow at the Thai Institute. So thank you very much for coming back on the program. Uh I really want to discuss the the future of Japan because it’s much like it’s um especially the European counterpart but also to some extent the American pound counterpart is going through some deep structural economic uh problems and uh obviously the crisis between uh Japan and China continues uh that is after the new Chinese sorry the new Japanese prime minister threatened to deploy missiles in Taiwan. against China and uh the Chinese response has been very fierce. The it seems that the Japanese prime minister she walked back these comments a little bit but it’s also difficult to do to walk it back completely. Um I was wondering if you could flesh out how you see or how you understand this conflict and where it’s all going. Yeah, look, it’s great to be back with you, Glenn. And uh look, the Japan China situation of course um has very immediate dimensions, but it also is set against a long or at least a medium-term historical setting of over a 100red years. and the issues that emerged in the last few weeks concerning the remarks from the new Japanese prime minister in relation to the question of Taiwan where she in response to questions and in fact in response to quite a bit of pressure in the Japanese diet um provided a question which indicated that from her point of view um any uh issues in relation to Taiwan could trigger or would trigger a survival question for Japan which would uh necessitate uh a um a military response. Now this is um a a significant departure from the historical settlement since the end of the second world war when Japan acceded to um a whole range of arrangements in terms of sovereignty issues within the area as well as of course um acceded to a pacifist constitution which limited the extent to which Japan uh as a nation could rebuild a military for aggressive or expansionist purposes. So uh the remarks of course set off a range of concerns. Uh the most immediate one of course related to the question of Japanese intervention on the question of Taiwan which is a question of Chinese sovereignty. Um it goes back on uh agreements that the Japanese had entered into in the 1970s and subsequently with the People’s Republic of China, but which also goes back on or seeks to Salampi slice so to speak agreements that the Japanese were compelled to enter into um uh with with with Cairo and Potam um which related to a bunch of territories that the Japanese had um had colonized um in the late 1800s and going into the early 1900s. So all of that um thrown into a melting pot of course uh provokes provoked a very very strong reaction as you say um Takayichi has um under some pressure u begun some modest walk backs she’s now talking about how the Japanese position has not changed um as far as the Chinese are concerned of course that’s nowhere near good enough and I think the pressure will continue to mount um on her. I think the other issue of course is that um uh and this is a double-edged sword problem Glenn because Japanese prime ministers these days don’t last very long. So making too much of an investment or a commitment of effort into sorting out arrangements with one doesn’t necessarily lead to a long-term arrangement with a country as a whole. There’s a lot of instability in Japan largely because of um domestic economic problems which have been around for decades as well as I think the challenges that Japan faces longer term which goes to its um not just demographic questions um but also its long-term security in relation to food security and energy security and all of these issues are starting to create immense pressure on the Japanese body politic as it seeks to find a way um to develop Japan as a nation. in a in a post tax Americana world. Well, Japan’s economy is faced with a lot of problems. For one, the it’s very very dependent on energy in energy imports uh to drive its economy and uh the the energy prices are going up. We see the Japanese currency struggling more and more especially under this huge well mountain of debt. Uh so if your energy costs are going up, your currency is weakening, uh this can put you in a very dangerous trap though. But what are the other main economic adjustments that Japan’s aiming to well to aiming to make? Well, I’m not sure it’s aiming to do anything at the moment. And that’s part of the challenge for Takayichi. She I think um doesn’t actually have a concrete economic strategy. And um and Japan itself really has struggled for many years to devise a postplaza accord economic strategy which addresses both geopolitical realities which is the context in which uh they entered into the plaza accord but also its structural challenges within the region and also as a as an island nation with limited resources. So it’s limited in terms of food and it’s limited in terms of energy as you say and these issues are simply not going to go away. I mean, we know that in the last few years since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, early 2022, um, and against the backdrop of all of those, um, Western Nation and G7, um, uh, sanctions against Russian oil that the Japanese actually had to seek special dispensation from their G7 colleagues to continue purchasing Russian energy um, without the strictures of the of the um, the sanctions regimes Because frankly put, the Japanese economy can’t afford to not have access to that energy. So, Japan needs to find a pathway to addressing its long-term structural issues on food and energy in the context of uh some demographic challenges. It’s an aging society, so it needs to address questions around a shrinking workforce, the demands that an aging uh population places, the need for automation and technology and those sorts of things, and ultimately also address a regional security environment that remains um on uh tent hook so to speak because we’re talking about North Asia where not only do we have the Japan China question, which I think frankly for 50 years has been largely stable. But you’ve got the North Korean Peninsula thrown into the mix. And the greatest security challenge to Japan, frankly, is its relationship or non-existent relationship with the DPRK. And uh without China’s good offices, the DPRK is a much greater risk for um for non unfriendly nations um than it would otherwise be. So these are the real big picture issues that I think are really pressing on Japan at the moment and um and and the sort of Taiwan question is a little bit of a distraction really from uh from the big issues. What is the relevance or importance of the relationship then between u Russia and Japan? You you mentioned that the Japanese can’t really afford to cut themselves off from Russia because of the energy. Russia has changed immensely over the years. I mean in the ‘9s the main objective in the west was more or less to organize Russia to orbit the west. It shouldn’t have a seat at the table but it should um yeah belong or follow what the west does. So uh of course this has now failed. The idea was that the Russia would go from being weak to even weaker. We would help to manage this decline. But now according to the World Bank, Russia’s for a while been the fourth largest economy in the world in terms of purchasing power power parity. But not only is it economy growing, but it’s also shifting towards the east. That is not some temporary measure, but it wants to permanently pivot to Asia where it’s well for many reasons. There’s more economic giants, so it’s less intimidating than it is in Europe. It doesn’t have the same historical baggage. And also the the Asian countries tend to be more dynamic. They’re growing more and also much more friendly towards the Russians. So they want to go to Asia. Now it’s an interesting relationship because for the Russians the the most difficult relationship to have in Northeast Asia is Japan. But for Japan, it seems as if of all the relationships there, the easiest one would be the Russians because it’s not easy with China, North Korea, even South Korea to a large extent is problematic. So, um, so how do you see the future between Japan and Russia and obviously Siberia being a huge development for for the Russians wanting to be this powerhouse they want to develop to connect closer with East Asia. Look, if there wasn’t the baggage of history and you were just looking at geographies and um resource endowments, uh you could actually imagine a North Asian future in which Japan, the Korean Peninsula, Northeast China, and Far East Russia um essentially developed a heavily integrated economic system uh where the resources of Siberia, whether they energy resources or food resources um played a really central role in the vitality of that part of the world. On top of that, as a result of the melting of the ice caps, we are starting to see the opening up of the Arctic transport route which connects East Asia to um Western Europe in ways that um that were unimaginable three or four decades ago. It’s reducing transport times you know by a matter of a week and a half which is very significant and it uh can in fact open up new markets because of the ability to reduce transportation costs. So that part of the world, that North Asia, you know, northeast China, Far Eastern Siberia, Japan, the Korean Peninsula, without all of the baggage of geopolitical history, could actually be an incredibly formidable economic dynamic economic region. There are, of course, the realities of history, right? Um, but the challenge for countries is to actually work their way through these historical problems to face the realities of today. Japan uh for it to have a sustainable and viable future needs to ensure that it has access to secure stable supplies of food and secure and stable supplies of lowcost energy. There is actually no better place to get all of that than from Russia. Right? That’s the reality of the situation. Needless to say, that’s not going to happen tomorrow. But I think it is something that is going to in a sense provide incredible um pressure if you will. You know it’s it’s the affordance to say look you know how can you ignore this opportunity forever on your doorstep. Um especially when it comes to your own national economic prosperity and survival. Similarly with food, I mean before the war in Ukraine, there was on and off a lot of um explorations of projects between the Japanese, the Chinese, even some Korean enterprises with Russia looking at the development of agriculture and food production systems um in Siberia. There’s no reason why those projects could not be recommissioned and accelerated going forward. But we do need the world to calm down before any of that happens. But um as part of a a post PAX Americana settlement, these are the sorts of things that are conceivable. The other issue that I think is worth noting, Glenn, is that about almost 2 years ago now uh the DPRK gave up its policy of reunification and that in my view actually opens up a diplomatic space that has never existed before. Now, that diplomatic space has yet to be properly exploited. But when you’ve got a a government in Pyongyang now longer having the ambition of reunifying with the South, it opens up the possibility of a whole set of new relationships based on state-to-state um formalities that could actually stabilize the North Korean peninsula in ways that haven’t been stable before. That will of course require soul to um reciprocate. Um it will require ultimately a reckoning with a big elephant in the room and that is the presence of American forces both in Japan and in South Korea. Right? So all of these issues I think are going to become uh questions that uh will will will demand attention from governments over the next 10 to 20 years. we saw um the release of the of of the American um defense paper, right? Defense policy statement and um and one interpretation of that is that it is explicitly focusing on the western hemisphere. Um the pivot to Asia that came with Obama I think seems to have been at least in a direct sense watered down from the Trump administration. They are of course wanting their allies to carry um a greater burden. But it does indicate that the Americans themselves are starting to confront certain realities. The realities that the balance of power has shifted. The realities of the resource limitations of the American economy itself. The realities that you can’t be the hgeimon across an entire globe um in an environment where other powers have reemerged. You simply can’t sustain that. And so we are now entering into an incredibly fluid period. What Takayichi said about China. In some ways, Glenn, I think, could be interpreted as a as a as a stressed reaction to these challenges on the one hand, but clearly she also speaks to a domestic audience and a domestic um section of the Japanese body politic from which she comes and from which she draws substantial support. But nonetheless, in the long duray, um there’s every likelihood that these remarks um notwithstanding the the the current intensity of reactions will fade into um into the historical record as the greater forces work their way through the system. Well, before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, there seemed to be some recognition in Japan that it was a good idea to connect themselves closer with Russia, not just for all the obvious economic interests that is food, energy, uh but but also uh the recognition that if Japan does not connect itself closer to Russia, also allow Russia to diversify its economic partnerships in Northeast Asia, then Russia would begin to lean excessively towards China. And the consequence of this would be that in any dispute or tensions between the Chinese and Japanese, the Russians would then lean automatically towards uh China. So it would be better for Japan to work more with Russia. So Russia would take a more neutral balanced position in in the region. So again, this was seemed like it was common sense before 2022. But then again, America tells all his partners uh what they have to do which is often to act against their own national interest. But uh but this is also we just had now a talk between well Putin is in India and him and Modi were both talking about economic development and cooperation and they kept talking about the Arctic. Of course the the port of Shennai is connected with with Vladivvastto and the Indians want to join in on the Arctic. Now for people who are not following it, it might seem geographically u yeah strange to see the Indians working within with Russia in the Arctic. But given that the Russians are no longer working with the western Arctic, they want to work with China and China is a very big economy. So they also want to bring in other large powers. So they the Chinese don’t have a you know they can have a very leading role but they can’t be dominant. This is the main idea. So this also applies to Japan. But so you have some even American interest for allowing Japan to work with Russia. But but also um uh the Americans themselves all the way all a decade ago still you had many these think tanks arguing why why aren’t we looking for a format where we can confront the Russians in Europe? We can continue this cold war trying to weaken them but in Asia we have to engage them because we don’t want to push the Chinese and Russians too close together. So it it does seem like there’s some room for maneuver as you said if you throw in North Korea uh into the mix as well that it’s possible it opens up more diplomatic space. Now uh is Japan is is there any movement in Japan in any of these directions to to give itself again some more room for maneuver to actually pursue what’s it in its national interest? Look, I’m not sure that there is at the moment, but you know, as I mentioned before, prime ministerships in Japan lately have been very short-lived, which I think makes it very difficult not only for Japan itself to develop a sustained strategic focus, but it makes it difficult for everyone else to have a sustained view in relation to Japan. Other than that, they seem to keep chopping and changing prime ministers. Um, you know, um, Ishiba before um, Takayichi um, also had very um, arguably quite interesting and perhaps slightly radical views about foreign relations. um but um but basically sought to push an an an element of Japanese or enhance Japanese strategic autonomy to borrow a term that’s often used in Europe. Um without necessarily ruffling too many feathers around the place and I think he managed to actually do that. Um he spoke forcefully. I mean he advocated an Asian NATO which of course had died um under his watch. It never went anywhere. But I mean he uh pushed the Americans on questions of extr territoriality. He pushed the Americans, you know, with obviously limited success, but nonetheless was willing to put on the table the idea that the relationship between America and Japan should be uh reformed to be one between two normal nations, the normal relationship in recognition that in fact the current relationship is anything but normal. He spoke forcefully about um and perhaps a little bit cheekily, but nonetheless, I think he was earnest um in talking about um Japan having its own military on on Guam and and other American territories with extr territorial rights as well, in the interests of there being a normal relationship, etc., etc. So um so Ashiba I think managed to um push the envelope actually quite a bit in terms of Japanese defense autonomy and also stretch some of those issues around the the the the the peace um constitution etc etc and one of the ways that he was able to do that was that he assiduously avoided inflaming China and particularly in relation to to the question of Taiwan, but not just Taiwan, but also um the Dalu Islands and things. Takayichi did not show that level of sophistication. Um so, you know, those remarks about Taiwan uh was red rag to a bull in some regards. You’d say that they were actually quite foolish. other people, you know, and and I know that there are people who express this view that she wouldn’t have done so without the American say so and perhaps even did it at America’s instigations to test the waters. But whatever the case may be, um I I think she uh she overreached on this stuff which has caused blowback and then now she’s trying to find a way back without um you know losing too much face. Um now with a new American doctrine emerging uh the question will be whether she can sustain uh a position where in many regards she’s largely or Japan’s largely going to be doing Americans bidding whilst at the same time trying to appeal to a domestic nationalist audience. Um and at the same time there’s these other big issues right I mean I always come back to the sort of broader strategic issues in the end. Um it’s well and good to be worried about the dayto-day, but um at some point you need to actually think about um how the big pieces eventually fit together again. And if there is a certain degree of American retrenchment in the region manifest as the Americans pushing their partners to take on more load, um what does that do in terms of the the balance of power in the region? Um my own view is is that the Americans lost the the the ascendancy sometime in the last decade. Um and this recent uh policy position from the White House affirms that. Um uh now that will rock Japan of course. Um but it simply reinforces a view that’s been evolving in Japan and also in in soul that that depending on the Americans for uh their future defense is probably not a wise thing to do. You know I think I think uh wise heads in in these capitals literally uh have come to a view. They ask themselves the simple question which is what’s the likelihood that Washington will sacrifice Washington or put at risk Washington, New York, Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Miami and every other city in between in the name of defending Tokyo or Seoul or Taipei or Manila for that matter. I don’t think anyone serious in any of these capitals believes that the Americans will do that. Right? So there actually is in a practical sense no ambiguity at all. The Americans will not be there. They may push others and lead from the rear, right? But they certainly won’t be at the front. instead of defending Japan, I think it’s more likely that Japan would have to take a a role of an Asian Ukraine that is to go and fight and die for America. But uh um but it’s an interesting point though that Japan doesn’t want to decouple from the US but wants to redefine the relationship that is to go from being well let’s call it vassels to become equals and that’s a reasonable path or aspiration. in Europe indeed. We we used to have the same aspiration. We talked about European independence. We talked about uh sovereign um what was the word they used? Uh uh yeah something along sovereign equality something along those lines. a lot of words, code words they used for having more independence from America, but at least to be equals but this has kind of gone out the window now and uh now the main hope of course is just to keep the Americans here and then we’ll be happy with being vassels it seems. But uh but but irrespective of what the Japanese how they want to redefine the relationship with the US as you mentioned the US uh position itself in Asia is uh diminishing that is the US might have to reduce its uh presence. Uh it has will have much less economic punching power as at least relative power as you have then the rise of uh China and others. Um you also see the US as it’s in relative decline it’s predictably taking on a more extractive approach that is a more of a tributary economy seeking to extract the wealth from allies. uh also the US interest in forming geoeconomic blocks that is having allies uh cut themselves off from important centers of power like China and commit themselves solely to the US which often it will leave countries in a position where they have uh less prosperity and also less political autonomy. So a lot of this what everyone thinks of the partnership with the US and subordination to a large extent from World War II until now which many of his partners were able to prosper. Uh this time appears to be coming to an end. So if if Japan recognizes that the world is changing irrespective of what it wants, um wouldn’t it be the main thing it could do was to reach out to China and not to join some Chinese-led block, but just to diversify its economic ties. I’ll give you an interesting um context for all of this. You’ve got the regional comprehensive economic partnership which is the free trade agreement facilitated and in fact initiated by Azan and it took 8 years to pull together and it covers 15 nations of the of the region. So the 10 and now the 11 members of Azan plus China, Japan uh Republic of Korea, Australia and New Zealand. And within that context, the Chinese economy uh occupies about 54 55% of the rce GDP. Japan’s the second largest at 19%. Japan is a very significant player in the region and it has a whole bunch of economic interests tied up with China not only in terms of its trade and investment but Japan uh Republic of Korea and China as I’m sure you remember after the Asian financial crisis actually have built a whole range of institutions with currency swaps that seek to protect their respective financial cial systems from future liquidity crisis and and those institutions are actually quite significant within the context of the developing countries of Asia as a whole because uh currency swaps between those three nations actually acts as the ballast for the financial system right across Asia. So Japan is deeply embedded economically speaking within Asia broadly speaking and of course is deeply intertwined with the Chinese economy. It has many enterprises in China that have been there now for 20 plus years um you know generating significant revenues employing many Japanese in Japan as well as some Japanese in China but certainly creating a lot of value for shareholders. um it um these these things aren’t easily untied, right? Um without really significant downstream losses. Now, the European experience, which you’ve covered incredibly over the last 3 years, is actually really telling. It’s something that people across Asia really need to take a close look at. Not for all of the the so-called lessons that so many people talk about which is you know oh so and so will invade this person if we don’t do this and so and so will do that. It’s actually to understand the ways in which economic interests are at risk of being undermined if you allow other factors to take hold of your body politic. and that in fact you’ve got to put in more effort to sort out your security and your diplomatic relationships so as to not jeopardize your economic relationships. The idea that a gas pipeline could be blown up by an allied country, right, is the case in point. you know, countries of Asia really need to understand that uh they need to work very hard at consolidating their economic relationships as the foundations for regional stability and peace. Um that’s actually the foundational lesson. The second lesson, of course, is that the Americans are more than happy to leap from the rear and point everybody in the direction of the the dead end of the primrose path um and are more than happy to abandon you um the closer you get to the end. Um we’re seeing that play out right now. The Americans trying to find a way to abandon him um you know, their allies, walk away, save face um and pretend nothing happened, right? um and and with a bit of luck take a bit of bounty on the way as well. Um so these are some of the critical lessons. Is Tokyo able to learn these lessons? It needs to confront these questions. It needs a national discussion about them. You would have seen Soulm has reacted to um Takayichi’s comments by saying well look we’re not buying into this because that will actually make things worse. um and they’re very mindful of the fact that um uh inflaming tensions within Asia given what’s happened in in Europe is incredibly counterproductive to all of their national interests and um and and so I guess the the hope is that the Japanese body politic and I say this as hope without necessarily too much optimism len but the hope is that the debates that are taking place in Japanese society around these questions will lead to a longerterm reflection or a strategic reflection on the longerterm positioning of Japan. You know, we’ve had 80 years since the end of the Second World War. Japan’s prospered in many respects. It’s had a difficult 20 years, but its living standards aren’t poor by any stretch of the imaginations. It’s one of the most expensive countries in the world, right? But it is facing some really big challenges and it can’t solve those challenges without resolving a stable and secure set of arrangements within its region. Right? It needs to solve food. It can’t do that without solving regional questions. It needs energy. It must address the question of energy from um Siberia. Right? This is just sensible stuff for nation building and um and it needs to have a good relationship with China not only because of the economic stuff but because it’s that relationship that will help stabilize the North Korean peninsula. Now the other point to remember and often people forget this is when you look at this little part of the world you’ve got China, Russia, DPRK, ROK and Japan there are three nuclear powers amongst them right and then the two that aren’t are dependent on the Americans. And this is why I asked the question earlier are the Americans going to actually provide a a nuclear shield? They’re not, right? They’re not going to come anywhere near doing any of that. So DPRK, Russia have a strategic um uh defense relationship. The DPRK and China actually have had a um a mutual defense arrangement since the 1950s. Um these things have been in place a long long time. and Japan and the Republic of Korea uh whilst historically having the American bases there have been the counterweight. If the Americans are starting to get a bit questionable, their dependability becoming to be questioned deeply and they are, then the Japanese and the Koreans are going to actually have to find a pathway to independently resolving these dynamics. They can no longer depend on the Americans to be there because let’s not forget the Americans are there for the Americans. They’re not there for Japan and they’re not there for Korea just as they’ve been in Europe for the Americans. It’s quite clear that they’re not there for the Ukrainians. We’ve had half a million uh Ukrainians or more die uh in the name of America’s war. Uh they’re not there for the Ukrainians or anyone else. They’re there for America. I get that. We can be dispassionate about that. But, you know, let’s not beat around the bush. Um, and Japan and and and others really need to understand that and realize that um that their own interests are are unlikely to be aligned to those of of those of America, particularly as America articulates its interests in the way that it is doing at the moment. Yeah, this has been one of my great frustrations here in Europe that when you hear different journalists and politicians speak there, the point of departure is uh that the assumption that well we have to America and NATO have to help uh you know defend democracy and sovereignty in Ukraine as if this is what the main mission is that we’re just uh America’s just Amnesty International with nuclear weapons. This is all goal just protecting democracies around the world. I mean the US has a security strategy developed around the notion that security depends on the preservation of hedgemony and this requires you to weaken or knock out rising great powers. It doesn’t mean you walking around defending democracy. And it’s kind of frightening because we I hear our own political leaders speak in this language that well America’s our friend so we can outsource our security. You know, give them some military bases and the friend is assuming that our interests are completely overlapping. I think in this multiple world when the interests diverge more and more h it’s going to be a very tough lesson in the future that no our interests are not always the same and it’s should be common sense that Americans should and they will put their own interests ahead of ours and um but in terms of section Glenn look it’s a great observation this question of how countries arrive at a view as to what their interests are often it’s assumed that there are these interests out there that that countries have. But of course, countries go through processes of deliberating as to what it is that constitutes their interests. And and the frustration arises when a particular view of a national interest clashes with alternative views of a national interest, particularly ones where the second national interest view subordinates the national interest to the interest of of a third party nation. And I think that as multi-polarity uh continues to unfold, many countries that had in some respects taken for granted this idea of what constituted their national interests will be confronted with the need to revisit all of these issues. You know, Australia is another case in point where as a subimperial nation for the best part of the last well, you know, many many decades um arguably since uh since since the days of its founding, uh the Australian political class has automatically uh viewed Australia’s interests as being 100% allied with the interests of its colonial protector or its, you know, great protector from across the Pacific. In other words, that what’s good for the UK or the British Empire and what’s good for the United States is ipso facto good for Australia. But of course, that’s not necessarily the case. And and that’s a really difficult question to um confront because for decades that’s just been part and parcel of how the institutions have thought about things, right? And suddenly things that you took as home truths and now being ripped up. Um, and it’s it’s very destabilizing because these are the the foundation stones upon which everything else had been built. And yet you now realize that those foundation stones are fragile. And it’s not you that’s necessarily taking pulling them away, but it’s the partner that you’d invested so much in that’s literally um no longer there. and um and and that’s a a a difficult uh psychological and strategic policy issue to confront. But Japan will need to confront that. Uh Republic of Korea will need to confront that. People on the island of Taiwan are actually now confronting this issue. Uh we’ve had the u the election of a new chairwoman of the KMT who is now talking very directly about a need for Daytona across the straits and for a recognition that Taiwan is part of the China world. Right? This hasn’t been part of the frame for for a decade. And yet um partly courtesy of the disruptions from Washington, partly as a reality I think of uh what’s happening in Europe, the reality of China’s emergence as a as an economic and as a military power. I mean that display in Beijing, you know what, two months ago, um anybody who’s serious will have paid attention and and so you know these questions are now being confronted. people who were once diehard independent um advocates uh are now having second thoughts because they know it’s not going to happen. It’s no longer reality. No one’s going to help them and they need to confront the world as it is. They need to deal with the world as it is. Preserve what they treasure and believe in to the extent that they can and ultimately pursue policies that will promote prosperity and stability and ultimately life as opposed to policies that lead to death and destruction. Well, in the academic literature though on um the US empire after the cold war, you have people like uh Peter Kenstein who who kind of writes about the nodes in the US empire. that is the US can’t just dominate everything out of Washington. So it set up key partnerships. So on the western side of Eurasia, you have uh the Europeans, then especially Germany or Britain or also Britain. In the east, you have Japan and you give them a privileged status within the empire. And in this framework, Japan as well as Europeans would have almost completely overlapping interest with the United States. But as this imperial model dissolves that is the hegemonic order is over to to assume that the relationship would remain the same. It’s quite dangerous dangerous uh delusion and um just another lesson from Europe though which might help Japan is uh uh that uh when tensions rise uh that means the dependence on the security provider which is the United States will increase and the US will then be in a position to extract a lot of political and economic concessions to the extent that countries will have to act against their own national interest. This is how we ended up with the situation where the United States could essentially blow up the the the Nordstream pipelines that is destroy Europe’s economic architecture, its energy architecture and me while we are our politicians and journalists have to pretend as if it never happened and don’t ask any questions because we don’t really don’t want to hear the answers to this. I mean, it’s it’s um it’s it’s worth keeping in mind. I know like countries like India, they should be careful because if there’s too much tensions with China, they’re going to end up being captured by the Americans as well. And uh I think the same applies with the Japanese, if they end up in a real tension with the Chinese. It’s not just that they might face the fury of the Chinese, but they will then be completely owned by the United States at a point in time when the US have to start to rescue its own economy from problems which you know they can do like they do with Europeans cuz when they destroy their economic sorry their energy architecture uh and the industries no longer perform they they come over to the continent and they offer subsidies to relocate to the United States. So, so it’s it’s it’s not this, you know, allies aren’t friends. We’re not our interests aren’t the same. Uh but um yeah, you’re dead right. You know, the uh picking fights in your region or um stirring the pot actually leaves you more vulnerable on all fronts, you know. So in Japan’s case, it obviously opens up a front in relation to to uh China. China’s not happy. They have made certain actions that will have some economic repercussions in the short term. Um you know, so that’s one part. But of course, it does leave them, as you say, to be far more vulnerable to the great protector, you know, who can extract a lot more from them. And I think that that’s what largely the new American strategic doctrine is about, which is to say, look, you know, um, you’re going to have to pay your way. You’re going to have to do the heavy lifting. You’re going to have to take on greater risks, but we’re the back stop, right? We’re here right behind you. So, what will we provide you? Well, we’ll give you what we’ve provided elsewhere. Well, we’ll sell you weapons. You pay us and we’ll sell you weapons. We’ll provide you with access to intelligence, right? um you know, you’ll need our satellite system. So, we’ll provide that. Um but don’t expect us to have any real skin in the game in a literal sense, right? Off you go. And um and and they’ll control the vassels that way. So, the vassels leave themselves actually vulnerable on both fronts. This is the lesson also for Philippines. It’s a lesson for Republic of Korea and um and I think increasingly um for the folk on the island of Taiwan as well. um their best strategy is to find an autonomous way of resolving the issues in their region. Right? Their neighbors geography isn’t amanable to change. You’ve got to deal with it. The lesson of Europe is, you know, 300 years of not resolving this question of Russia and Europe, right? Ultimately has led to the the problems today, right? Geography matters and you’ve just got to deal with it. Is China going to invade Japan? Well, I doubt it. Right. There’s nothing much about Japan that I think um you know would would would make it endearing as as as as an invasion target. Is Japan going to invade China? Japan doesn’t have the means to even if it wanted to. Of course, it’s done it three times in the last 100 or so years. Um but it no longer has the means to. Um is China going to invade um the Philippines? No. Why would it? you know, uh, it it it it it has no ambitions in that regard. Yes, it has con conflicting claims in relation to parts of the South China Sea, and that will of course resolve itself um over time. I would expect it won’t be quick, by the way. Um, but China has no need to, in a sense, overreact with those things because the truth is is that it’s the biggest power in the region, right? um it could bully its way around like the Americans would have done historically. Um but it’s pretty counterproductive if you do that. So in a sense the biggest player needs to also be the most patient player and so but it also can’t be seen to be too weak either. Right? So that’s the balancing act. Um and uh and and so the region uh ultimately is going to need to find a way to a post America future. Now, Japan is in a a very interesting position. Obviously, it’s a vulnerable position, but it’s also in a in a in a position where it has a lot of um dare we say agency if it so chose to exercise it. And it’s because its economy within the region is an important player. It has a lot of technology. Um it it contributes a lot of knowhow, education, research, development and uh and it really needs to I think think a lot more strategically um and uh about that north North Asia configuration in a way that uh gives it a path to go and it it it can’t depend on the United States forever because the United States doesn’t have the ability to back it up anyway, right? So, it’s going to have to at some point confront this reality that the United States simply isn’t going to be there if and when it matters. Now, planning for that today is of course a double-edged sword because the more you begin to plan for that, Glenn, the more inevitable it becomes, right? So, by not preparing for it, you kind of want to hold the Americans in. Bit like what happens in Europe. But the day that you plan for a world without the Americans is the day that the Americans go. But that’s what needs to happen. Same in Europe. Um and you know in part it will happen because the Americans will retreat but the Americans will retreat in my view. And so this is just um hypothecating more than anything else in a messy kind of way. Um it will retreat in terms of the conventional military, you know, presence, but it’s going to um leave behind its gray disruption capabilities um in all these parts of the world because it’s still in an America’s interests in terms of how Washington views the world to disrupt and weaken everybody else in the in the world. If it can’t do that by having explicit forces on the ground, it’s going to do that through gray channels. And um and so we’ll see more regime change operations. We’ll see more attempts to destabilize countries through information and and all of that sort of stuff. This is what we’re going to see, you know, over the next 10 years as the empire unfolds. Um because the empire is not going to pack up and go away quietly. Oh, that’s a great point. Uh well I I suspect that the Americans weren’t unhappy when the Japanese prime minister made these statements and uh well fueled this uh conflict. I mean if you’re a hedgemon you do depend on alliance systems that is uh you want you need some conflicts to perpet perpetuate if you want your adversary to be balanced and you want your ally to be obedient. So it’s uh I think this is the main this is the main problem where also interest diverged which is this uh this fear that if peace would ever break out the alliance system and the hegeimon would then be weakened. Uh but uh just the last brief question before we run out of time which is um doesn’t Japan face a dilemma though if it wants to break free of the American empire it has to uh sort out its own security. However, Japanese remilitarization is uh something that won’t go down well in China, South Korea, North Korea. I mean, it’s well, you can go through the whole all of East Asia. There’s a lot of concern. History is not forgotten. So, how how do you interpret this dilemma? Well, it is a dilemma unless you can reframe the security question as a regional ini indivisible security problem, right? And um and you know, we’ve been there before whether it was Helsinki or whether it was the non-align movement and and in fact I think um President Putin and President Xiinping last year talked about this idea of a security club, right? So I think we’re going to need to reframe this question of security uh that understands security as an indivisible question and uh and so you know what one country does obviously uh can’t be done at the expense of others which means uh Japanese security which is important for the for the region and for the people of Japan um needs to be treated as legitimate. Um you know this is the this is the lesson learned out of Europe. You can’t dismiss the security concerns of others. You’ve actually got to respect them and incorporate them in your own thinking. Otherwise, you’ll never get anywhere near um a stable security architecture. And so I think it’s incumbent upon others in the region to respect Japan’s legitimate security interests just as it’s important for Japan to have its own national debate to put to bed some of those legacies from 80 years ago that will give others in the region cause for concern so that others can be confident that Japan’s participation in a future architecture of regional indivisible security will actually be dependable, that it won’t open a can of worms um or the Pandora’s box of Japanese um nationalism, neo-Nazi remilitarization. So, there’s elements that Japan, I think, are going to need to deal with so that it can effectively address the concerns of the region. and countries around the region also need to of course um be open to candid discussions about Japan’s security concerns. Um if you don’t do that then you’ll have a situation in Europe, right? Where you know you you dismiss um one of the main players um and eventually you um you push them to a point where they feel that they have no choice. Now that’s crazy of course and I mean that’s an important lesson to learn and I and I hope that the um that strategic thinkers and the leaders across uh these countries actually understand that as uh as the big conversation that they’re going to have to have over the next um you know five and 10 years. Yeah actually I would very much agree. I think that’s the main lesson to learn in Asia from Europe that is uh avoid this zero sum uh framework for security where security depends either on hedgemony block politics this excessive dependence on deterrence and instead embrace indivisible security that is inclusive security architecture I mean this used to be common sense and uh well just to finish I think uh there’s um in 2023 the you know if you focus on your country in Australia, the former uh prime minister Paul Kitting, he went out and he compared well he he said NATO well Asia needed a security institution like NATO like Asia needed a plague. This is the worst thing that could happen. This is what will bring Europe down and so by all means look for other solutions and I think that very much applies for uh Japan as well. So uh it’s um yeah anyways uh thank you for taking all of this time. It’s uh I think uh there will be more focus on all the massive things happening in Asia. It’s uh it’s a lot of opportunities coming but it’s also a lot of threats as well if we continue to make these missteps. Yes indeed. Thanks very much for having me again Glenn.

Warwick Powell is an Adjunct Professor at the University of the Queensland University of Technology, and a Senior Fellow at the Teihe Institute. Powell discusses Japan’s difficult readjustment from a US vassal in the unipolar system to a more independent state in a multipolar world.

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