The ANU National Security College’s Dr Euan Graham has argued for Australia’s to have a closer relationship with Japan in an Options Paper entitled, “Realising The Grand Bargain Potential Of The Australia-Japan Special Strategic Partnership”.
He writes as follows:
Australia’s already substantive security partnership with Japan contains the seeds of a grand bargain based on economic complementarity and shared geopolitical imperatives. The two countries are frequently described as ‘natural’ partners. Yet there is nothing organic about the mutual commitment of political will, treasure and acceptance of risk required to realise the partnership’s potential. And Australia faces competition in the grand bargain stakes from the United States.
The policy recommendation are:
- Australia and Japan should conceive of the bilateral relationship in terms of its ‘grand bargain’ potential, based on shared national interests. Australian and Japanese politicians and senior officials who interact regularly should socialise this concept to their respective bureaucracies and publics.
- Canberra should give Tokyo preferential access to critical minerals, if Japan agrees to invest at scale in extraction and processing in Australia. Australia should also be prepared to protect high-value shipments to Japan.
- Australia should give itself flexibility to increase the number of upgraded Mogami frigates it directly purchases from Japan, if this can deliver capability more quickly than constructing them in Australia.
- Canberra and Tokyo should start preliminary discussions on a broadly defined security cooperation treaty.
- The placement of Australian Defence Force and Japan Self-Defense Forces liaison officers in joint headquarters should be extended to reciprocal naval representatives embedded at the service level. Both countries should also establish a standing naval task group.
- The Australian Government and industry should direct funding to Australian academic institutions to build up a cadre of linguists and subject matter experts who can carry forward the security partnership with Japan.
The full report is here.
