As the West continues to grapple with the challenge of figuring out how to deal with China’s global influence, economic security has become much a talked-about concept among policymakers and experts in Japan, the United States and Europe. In the past few years, the concept has evolved, with countries embedding the idea in their respective national security strategies.
Economic security started out as a defensive concept, but it has now been weaponized to include an offensive element, morphing into a geoeconomic tool for nations to advance their strategic interests.
But what is economic security, in the first place? In Japan’s case, it comes down to five elements, as I state in the forthcoming book “What is Economic Security?,” edited by the Institute of Geoeconomics.