Japan’s values and technology edge an ideal fit for AUKUS

US and Japanese flags are seen posted on the Eisenhower Executive Office Building next to the White House ahead of a visit from Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.

There has been some talk in recent weeks about Japan joining AUKUS Pillar II with an announcement potentially timed to coincide with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s visit to Washington on April 10.

While the White House has not offered early comment on the possible expansion of the pact, President Joe Biden has previously been clear that as work progresses on Pillar II, AUKUS members will look for opportunities to engage other allies and close partners. Japan joining Pillar II would be significant. Improving co-operation between the defence science and industrial bases of all four countries to create a unified innovation powerhouse and fast-track key technologies would be strategic for many reasons.

The Japanese technology innovation sector, advanced manufacturing capabilities and hugely ambitious space program are three example areas where Australia, the UK and the US could leverage Japanese capacity to accelerate many of their Pillar II priorities. Other areas for joint development include advanced robotics, high-performance computing and hypersonics.

There are other similarities in policy between the AUKUS nations and Japan that make their inclusion in Pillar II sensible. All four nations have banned Huawei, as well as the Chinese Communist Party-sponsored Confucius Institutes from their universities. Japan has also been strident in its criticism of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and, alongside most other democratic nations, has heavily sanctioned the regime of Vladimir Putin as a result.

However, it is in the area of national defence where Japan has demonstrated a profound shift away from its post-Second World War prohibitions regarding the use of force towards a more realistic appraisal of Japan’s current security circumstances and the role military deterrence might play.

Prime Minister Kishida, in his 2022 National Defence Strategy, outlined a significant increase in Japan’s defence budget, to include the future possibility of doubling it to nearly $100bn. Kishida also emphasised the critical role of technology in Japan’s national security.

This profound change in strategic policy is as a direct result of evolving security dynamics in east and north Asia, to include how best Japan seeks to deter perceived threats and belligerence from potentially hostile powers, including Russia, China and North Korea.

We should expect Beijing to be upset. No longer will it be able to label AUKUS “colonial” or “Cold War” in its logic, design and implementation. The Chinese will also not welcome an AUKUS partner inside its own hemisphere where Australia, the US and the UK are seen by many in Beijing as “over there”, Japan sits well inside the weapon engagement zone of most People’s Liberation Army shore-based anti-ship missiles.

This will allow AUKUS partners the opportunity to forward stage and experiment with emerging technology sets in areas many in China describe as “home waters”.

That said, AUKUS members should not seek provocation with Beijing and should instead cite current standing defence co-operation arrangements with Japan as examples where Pillar II can operate in Japan without exacerbating tensions unnecessarily.

Other benefits to having Japan as an AUKUS Pillar II partner include the opportunity to expand broader defence co-operation between Australia and Japan, which concluded a reciprocal access agreement in August 2023. This agreement allows respective partners to base forces as well as conduct training in both countries (such as the staging of Australian fighter jets in Japan in September 2023), as well as increasing the scope of Japan’s involvement in Exercise Talisman Sabre, a critical military firepower and deterrence activity between Australia and the US held every two years. Pillar II comes as a natural extension of this, making Japan a fully fledged security partner for Australia, both inside and outside AUKUS.

While Japan coming into Pillar II is a good thing, broader challenges for AUKUS still remain. Throughout the past months, the Biden administration has seemingly grappled with exactly how to make the ambitious, multi-tiered AUKUS program a success across the Capitol. The all-important steps toward boosting defence collaboration between the three partner nations remain problematic; the forthcoming presidential election is expected to make this even more difficult. Later this month, the US State Department owes congress its assessment of the UK and Australian capacity to get their export control rules and regulations AUKUS ready in order to meet the goals of Pillar II.

This is significant for Australia especially as it will unlock access into future technology collaboration on not only Pillar I technology (submarines) but also Pillar II, to include AI, cyber, quantum computing, robotics and long-range weapons.

For this to happen, the Biden administration must certify to the congress that both Australia and the UK have adopted their own comparable export control systems so they can qualify for exemptions under the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, which guide the US government’s rules for allowing defence exports. For many in defence industry the success of AUKUS hinges on overcoming the issue of ITAR.

Despite these challenges, most experts in Washington remain optimistic about AUKUS and hold a conviction to the belief that the proposed changes to US export controls will happen. The State Department has been especially vocal, with officials indicating the planned April 2024 certification of Australia and the UK as “AUKUS ready” will go smoothly.

We should expect Japan to have its own legislative challenges to Pillar II over the coming months. None are insurmountable, but problematic all the same. Japan’s inclusion in Pillar II is, however, a natural evolution of converging security concerns among four Asia-Pacific democracies with the geographic, political and economic capacity to protect and defend the values and traditions of the liberal international order.

Expect other follow-on initiatives to emerge as a result of the Pillar II collaboration, to possibly include what some in the US and Australia are now loosely calling “Pillar III”; namely, the security, access and control of critical minerals, to include copper, lithium, nickel, cobalt and other rare earth elements. “Pillar III” builds an argument for expansion even further, to include the mining and critical mineral-rich countries such as Canada sometime in the immediate future.

Professor Ian Langford is executive director of the Security and Defence PLuS Alliance. He is also a former ADF senior military officer.