From greater investments to closer-than-ever defense and security cooperation, Japan-Germany relations have soared to unprecedented heights in recent years, Berlin’s top envoy to Tokyo has said, as the partners align their strategic interests to tackle what they view as mounting challenges to the international order.
“We have always had a very close relationship but, given the geostrategic and geopolitical changes in recent years, our cooperation is now more intense than ever before,” German Ambassador Clemens von Goetze told The Japan Times in a recent interview, pointing to shared concerns such as the war in Ukraine, supply chain disruptions and security tensions in East Asia.
The growing momentum — which will reportedly see Prime Minister Fumio Kishida make his first visit to Germany as leader next month — is largely reflected in the expanding defense, diplomatic and economic security cooperation between the strategic partners. Berlin has realized that it can no longer afford to ignore Indo-Pacific issues, while Tokyo has sought to forge a united front of “like-minded” partners to deal with an “increasingly severe” global security environment.
“We have great interest in helping maintain security in the Indo-Pacific, which will be key to the global economy and politics in this 21st century,” said von Goetze, who was appointed to his post in September 2021.
Risks posed by military buildups in China and North Korea, as well as the escalating situation in the East and South China Seas and around Taiwan, are of particular concern to Berlin, he added.
Japan and Germany, both U.S. allies striving to rapidly boost defense spending to 2% of gross domestic product, have embraced the argument that the security of Europe is “inseparable” from that of the Indo-Pacific region.
Germany, for its part, is not only seeking a continuous and long-term security commitment to the region, but also new partners amid Europe’s push to diversify and de-risk ties with China.
While Berlin’s first-ever China strategy, released last July, may have been more of a position paper than a more conventional strategy, it also created a baseline, allowing the Defense Ministry and other parts of the government to expand security engagements in the region. This has included bigger and more ambitious military deployments than its last forays into the region, in 2021 and 2022.
“We are discussing security policies (with Japan), but we also want to enhance cooperation between our armed forces not only in terms of increased dialogue, but also to exchange practical experience and increase interoperability between our forces,” von Goetze said.
Highlighting the new policy are plans by the countries' air forces to hold their first-ever joint aerial exercise next month as the Luftwaffe and Air Self-Defense Force tighten coordination and become familiar with each other's operational approaches.
The four-day Nippon Skies drills, part of the joint German, French and Spanish Pacific Skies deployment to the region, will see the Luftwaffe dispatch three Eurofighters and an aerial tanker to train alongside six Japanese F-15s in a follow-up to the German air force’s first-ever visit to Japan in 2022.
Joint army and naval exercises are also planned, including a port call in Japan in late August by a frigate and a combat support ship, three years after the German Navy's first such mission to the region in over 20 years.
Facilitating these joint maneuvers is a defense pact the strategic partners signed in January designed to ease the exchange of supplies and logistical support while allowing the use of each side's military facilities during exercises.
Bilateral diplomatic engagement has also ticked up, von Goetze said, with high-ranking German officials regularly visiting Japan since the two sides formally established “two-plus-two" meetings between their foreign and defense ministers in 2021.
“The main message is that Germany is willing to contribute to regional peace and stability,” the ambassador said. “Together with Japan, we are working very closely, not only to uphold the international order but also because this region is of enormous economic importance to us.”
At the same time, von Goetze sought to ease concerns that Berlin might not be able to maintain such a mid-to-long-term security engagement halfway across the globe, given the mounting challenges closer to home, including the intensifying war in Ukraine and the need to ramp up its own military expenditures.
In 2022, Berlin agreed to set up a €100 billion ($107 billion) special fund to meet the 2% GDP defense spending target for the first time since the end of the Cold War. But uncertainty has grown over how the country will meet that goal when the fund is exhausted in 2028 amid budget infighting within the ruling coalition.
“It’s true that there is a discussion on how this financing will be managed concretely in Germany, but Berlin has also made it very clear that, given the dramatic change in the security situation in Europe, our country has to do more to defend itself and its allies,” von Goetze said.
However, “this does not mean that we will have no more resources to engage outside Europe,” he said, emphasizing that Germany will “continue to provide the necessary resources” to maintain a high level of engagement in the Indo-Pacific region.
Ties in the cyber and economic security arena have also grown, as concerns mount in the world’s third- and fourth-largest economies over what they view as “unfair” Chinese trade practices such as Beijing’s use of industrial overcapacity or, in some cases, economic coercion.
“Both Japan and Germany have export-driven economies, so we have to make sure they remain resilient, have safe supply lines and that the world markets remain open to our products,” von Goetze said, pointing to how these “preconditions for economic success” are increasingly being challenged.
“Our two countries are therefore coming even closer together to make sure we can continue to work on the basis of a stable international order, both politically and economically,” he said.
At the same time, the two sides aim to expand trade relations, with many German companies looking at Japan to intensify and possibly broaden their business base as they seek to diversify some activities away from China.
“We have also seen considerable investments by German companies in Japan,” the ambassador said, noting how business-to-business collaboration has increased in several fields, particularly in high tech and green energy transition.
“I think both countries face challenges to transform not only digitally, but also in the fields of energy production and consumption” as they move away from fossil fuels and implement initiatives toward achieving carbon-neutral societies over the coming decades.
Areas for greater collaboration were presented Wednesday by State Secretary Jennifer Morgan, Germany’s special envoy for international climate action, as the partners coordinate their positions ahead of this year’s COP29 climate change conference in Baku, Azerbaijan.
During a visit to Tokyo, the former head of Greenpeace International told reporters that Germany and Japan are “comparing notes” in terms of offshore wind power, climate financing, decarbonizing energy-intensive sectors and creating economic incentives to encourage industries to embrace the energy transition.
A good basis for tackling climate change could be stronger academic and scientific cooperation as this will drive the next technological revolution forward, von Goetze said, adding that progress is also being made in the areas of cultural and people-to-people exchanges.
Still, given the many similarities between countries and their growing strategic alignment, von Goetze believes there is room for even greater bilateral cooperation,
"I think our relations are on an upward trajectory, and we have every intention to keep that momentum going.”
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