Looking ahead at what can be: Australia,
Japan and the post-COVID world
If Prime Minister Abe reads the annual Lowy
Institute poll, it might have provided about the only fillip to his recent
political fortunes. He would have no doubt been pleased that a constituency, somewhere,
thought rather highly of his leadership. In recent weeks, PM Abe’s polls in
Japan, across most of the leading polling outlets, have seen a drop in satisfaction
or popularity of him and his Cabinet (depending on the phrasing of the
question). Scandals surrounding his government continue to hamper his
leadership, his handling of the response to the COVID-19 crisis has drifted in
the wake of more assertive responses by prefectural governors, and with the end
of his third term approaching, there is less confidence he can once again
persuade party colleagues of yet another extension to the previous
two-year-two-term limit on the party presidency. His planned triumphs of 2020,
the Tokyo Olympics and a referendum on changes to the Peace Constitution are
all but corona-ed. Both incumbent Australian and Japanese governments are in
lockstep with the Trump Administration, and PMs Morrison and Abe look set to
accept the dubious invite to Trump’s G7 later in the year.
The Lowy poll invites an opportune moment to
look to where the Australia-Japan relationship might go, in a post-COVID world,
beyond the fog of the US-China entanglement. In key findings, seven in ten
Australians express confidence in PM Abe, 79 percent recognise Japan as a
democracy and in the ‘feelings’ thermometer Japan came in at 69 degrees, around
the midpoint of 63 in 2007 and 74 in 2018. It is probably reasonable to
speculate that Japan’s popularity as a tourist destination for Australians in recent
years is reflected in these figures. In Japan, at the time of writing, a few news sites picked up the The Agence France-Presse (AFP) report with the focus on the China
angle, nothing about Australians high level of confidence in Japan.
Prior to the signing of the security
agreement in 2007, Japan viewed Australia as a key partner in the Asia-Pacific
region, building a relationship as ‘advanced liberal democratic countries,
supporting and strengthening peace and prosperity and a free trade system’,
(Diplomatic Bluebooks, inter alia) amongst other aims. As successive Australian
governments of both persuasions encouraged and enabled a stronger defence
outlook by Japan, the two countries have boasted of a ‘special strategic
partnership…sharing fundamental values and strategic interests’ (Diplomatic
Bluebook 2016ff).
Despite a record of government-level
engagement dating from the late-nineteenth century, most observers view the
relationship through its mutually beneficial economic growth from the 1960s
onwards, or more lately, the security agreement signed by PMs Howard and Abe in
2007. But in a post-COVID world, where we might hope for a return for good
global citizenship, Australia and Japan could leverage this bilateral goodwill
to forge a partnership with a broader ‘human security’ remit.
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| Abe has much to ponder (from a class simulation exercise) |
In an international environment which has accommodated
advancing militarisation over other forms of security in recent years, it will
take a courageous turn in leadership to recalibrate national interests to reflect
a more nuanced, post-COVID world. To borrow an Olympic analogy, we may need try
to pole vault our way into a new era. In doing so, I would suggest that the
potential strengths in a future Japan-Australia alliance lie not in a narrow
security alliance but a broader, human security approach. Many years ago, as a
graduate student doing interviews about Japan’s relationship with Australia,
one bureaucrat especially conversant with the Australian vernacular, told me
‘Japan sees Australia as a friendly corner shop; we might like to occasionally
shop elsewhere but Australia will always there when we need them’. It is a
comment that has stayed with me ever since and re-emerges when I think about
what could be. In the 1970s and 1980s, the bilateral relationship was informed
by regular ministerial meetings where ministers across several portfolios would
gather to confer on matters of state. The increase in regional fora and a sense
of redundancy saw the ministerial level meetings diminish over time, only to be
revived in a foreign affairs/security 2+2 format as a part of ‘strengthening
the strategic partnership’.
The bilateral relationship could return to
its shared interests in the region (beyond narrow strategic parameters) and
begin to build regional resilience on climate change and embrace the United
Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In Japan, the SDGs are being
taken up across corporate, educational and social institutions (disclaimer:
including my own university) and operate within parameters that resonate with past
practices of comprehensive security and human security. A renewed effort at people-to-people
engagement (previously a strength of the bilateral relationship) would help
facilitate and reconnect the breadth of the relationship and the possibilities.
Those seven in ten people who believe PM Abe is doing a good job might not be
aware that more than half the Japanese population still resist amendments to
the peace constitution. We rarely see that reflected in the 2+2 dialogues.
There is a sense of the inevitable in
expanding military responses. It is the dominant frame through which we view
‘security’, through which we view ‘strong leadership’. At the time of writing,
there is speculation coming out of the weekend that PM Abe might call a snap
election, a tactic he has used previously to try and bolster support for his
agenda (though the opposition parties continue to be in disarray and unable,
seemingly, to garner a majority vote). Tokyo is in the throes of a
gubernatorial election in which former Abe foe and incumbent Governor Koike
looks set to retain her post. That Koike is effectively backed by the Liberal
Democratic Party this time (unlike the previous election where she faced a
candidate supported by the LDP) will offer the national leadership a charade of
support, should they choose to do so.
With many observers urging governments to reset
the levers in a post-COVID world, Japan and Australia have a capability to do
so, in the region, with the right leadership mix. We ought to start planning
now, and rather than running behind opinion polls, here is an opportunity to
get out in front.
