Growing German-Japanese Engagement in Indo-Pacific

Abstract

China’s perilous rise has led to its securitization by its neighboring states, particularly given its precarious maritime claims in the strategic waters of the Indo-Pacific. Extra-regional states, too, fear the threatened rules-based international order in the region, as more than half of the world’s maritime trade is conducted through these waters. Such a development in the region has allowed Germany and Japan to strengthen their strategic partnerships in the Indo-Pacific. The securitization of China, coupled with Germany and Japan’s common interests in safeguarding rules-based international order and deterring unilateral changes to the status quo, contributed to the emergence of this engagement. Moreover, the growing engagement provides Southeast Asian states a hedging option as China’s assertion of its territorial claims increases. This paper uses securitization theory to analyze the emerging German-Japanese cooperation in the Indo-Pacific. Germany’s policy guidelines for the Indo-Pacific region and Japan’s Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP) strategy have been analyzed to show the emergence of German Japanese cooperation.