ABSTRACT
Japan’s current ‘special relationship’ with Australia is predicated upon a carefully nurtured strategic partnership founded upon the Joint Declaration on Security Cooperation in 2007, and subsequently augmented. It is especially significant since it established the template that Tokyo has sought to apply to a series of elevated bilateral relationships with other such partners (discussed elsewhere in this volume). There are several notable features of the security alignment with Australia. First, it has been the easiest to facilitate and attracted bipartisan support in Japan, as in Australia, making it the most successful (‘special’) of Japan’s new security alignments to date. Second, as such, it has served as a type of ‘proving ground’ for a range of new Japanese foreign policy objectives—overseas arms exports, overseas military activities, intelligence sharing, as well as a diplomatic ‘demonstration effect’ for historical reconciliation. Third, while the strategic partnership represents a major departure from Japan’s overreliance upon the US-alliance (‘decentering’) on the one hand, on the other it actually underwrites Japan’s commitment to the US-alliance system (‘re-centering’). This latter process manifesting itself through the Trilateral Strategic Dialogue (TSD) and contributing to Washington’s policy of ‘connecting’ its various allies more closely into a united front. All these factors make the Australian case study a suitable benchmark for comparative analysis with Japan’s other less developed strategic partnerships.
