Japan seeks a balance between their geopolitical and economic interests as Suga and Biden meets in Washington

Leaders from the United States and Japan will be meeting each other in Washington D.C. on April 16, and sources suggest that both leaders will issue a statement to highlight concerns over the human rights situation in China, the growing tension across the Taiwan Strait, and other topics that need to be addressed. Experts think the meeting will highlight Japan’s attempt to seek a balance between its geopolitical and economic interests.

As Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga prepares to meet U.S. President Joe Biden on April 16 in Washington D.C., Japan Times reported that sources in the Japanese government said Suga and Biden will issue a joint statement focusing on human rights violations in China.

The news comes at a time when the Biden administration continues to criticize China’s persecution of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang and the crackdown in Hong Kong. Suga previously said that these issues need to be addressed based on basic human rights principles.

Japan Times described the decision to single out human rights issues in China as a rare move initiated by Japan and the United States. Apart from human rights violations in China, Biden and Suga are also expected to agree on ensuring peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, as tensions intensify over the last few months.

The joint statement is also expected to reaffirm the fact that the Senkaku Islands fall under the scope of a Japan-US security treaty. Under Article 5 of the treaty, Washington will defend Japan’s territories when they come under armed attack.

Japan seeks balance between geopolitical and economic interests

Over the last few months, Japan has established security-related mechanisms with several countries in the Indo-Pacific region. Late last month, Japan’s foreign minister and defense minister held a meeting with their counterparts from Indonesia, and they agreed to increase collaboration in the security sector as part of their responses to China’s maritime expansion in the Indo-Pacific region.

Additionally, Kyoto News reported in March that defense ministers from the US and Japan agreed to coordinate their responses if an armed conflict broke out across the Taiwan Strait. Jeff Kingston, director of Asian Studies at Temple University Japan, said while it may look like Japan’s defense policies have changed a lot over the last few months, there is in fact a lot of continuity between former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and the current Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga’s government.

“Japan is navigating between its geopolitical interest and its economic interest,” said Kingston. “China is Japan’s major economic partner, and Taiwan feeds into the delicate situation. Japan prefers a quieter approach to Taiwan and they don’t want to rile China over Taiwan. I think it fully supports China not changing the status quo by force but I don’t think it wants to necessarily voice that.”

According to Kingston, Japan embraces what they describe as value-oriented diplomacy but time and time again, it has come up short. “We look at what happened in Hong Kong and Japan is engaged in some vigorous hand-wringing,” he said. “It also hasn’t done anything to antagonize China over the Uyghurs.”

Kingston said even though Japan is the originator of the concept of a “free and open Indo-Pacific region,” the Japanese government knows that anything they do to promote human rights or to call out governments on abuses or violence is going to help China.

“The Biden administration wants to see what Japan is really prepared to do in support of the concept of free and open Indo-Pacific, and so far, it’s a lot of rhetoric and not much action,” Kingston said.

Masuda Masayuki, the senior fellow at the National Institute for Defense Studies in Japan, thinks that even though some Japanese lawmakers call for a new measure to upgrade our tie with Taiwan, it is unlikely for the Japanese government and Ministry of Foreign Affairs to review its One China policy.

“We can’t expect Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs to actively lead a process of upgrading ties between Tokyo and Taipei,” Masayuki said. “Rather, some lawmakers from the ruling party will lead the process in the future. But given the fragile political foundation of the current administration, Suga will not make a clear stance on Taiwan. His government will keep its practical relationship with Taiwan.”

How do the US and Japan view China’s military threat against Taiwan?

Earlier this week, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told NBC that Washington is concerned about Beijing’s increasingly aggressive moves against Taiwan and he warned that any country that tries to change the status quo in the Western Pacific by force will be making a serious mistake.

Derek Grossman, a senior defense analyst at Rand Corporation, said Taiwan is likely to be on the agenda during the meeting between Suga and Biden. “We’ll get a public statement on it, following the Biden-Suga summit because of China’s increasingly coercive behavior toward the island and the growing concerns this has engendered in Washington and Tokyo,” he said.

“I think Japan and the US always agreed, albeit privately, that Taiwan’s security was a top priority to address, and one that may even bring Japan into a future fight. As the urgency of maintaining Taiwan’s security grows with each passing day, it would be unsurprising if this topic spilled out into the public domain next week.”

Apart from the issue of Taiwan, Masayuki predicts that China will try to challenge Japan’s control over the Senkaku Islands in a combination of the Chinese military. This new situation inevitably requires the Japanese government takes further measures to strengthen its defense capability, the deterrent capability of the Japan-US Alliance, and security network with partners, such as QUAD.

“Japan clearly has its own challenges with China, most notably in the East China Sea over the Senakaku dispute,” said Grossman from Rand Corporation. “Tokyo is probably glad to see the US reasserting a leadership role in the region that it can complement to secure its own specific national interests.”

Jeff Kingston from Temple University Japan thinks that Japan’s security depends on its strong alliance with the US, even though Japan has a fairly strong military and a very advanced navy. Since Japan hasn’t substantially increased its defense budget over the last few years, Kingston thinks Tokyo can only keep relying on the US.

“I think Japan needs to keep diplomatically engaged with China instead of provoking it,” Kingston said. “That’s a delicate situation and some people in the government are worried about where this might lead. For Japan, the larger question is how do they thread the needle between their geopolitical interests and their economic interests. There is also the long-term importance of a hegemonic China and how do they prepare for that. There is a lot of balls in the air for Japan to juggle in the next few years.”

This piece was first published in Mandarin on DW’s Chinese website.