KEY TAKEAWAYS
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Earlier this month, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida made the surprise announcement that he would not seek another term. Although he was prime minister for less than four years, Kishida’s foreign policy legacy spans strategic and tactical advances in Japan’s defense and diplomatic posture. His approach represented both a continuation of and divergence from the legacy of his former boss, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, under whom Kishida acted as Japan’s longest-serving foreign minister. Although Kishida’s successes on foreign affairs were overshadowed by domestic political scandals involving his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), as well as lack-luster economic growth, he oversaw increases in Japan’s reputation and popularity in the region and globally, as well as the institutionalization of related partnership gains.
No matter who wins the LDP leadership election at the end of September, the incoming prime minister would do well to take advantage of the position in which Kishida’s administration has left Japan on the world stage.
Perhaps most prominently on the foreign and defense affairs front, Kishida enacted a historic rise in Japan’s defense spending set for 2% of GDP beginning in 2027, which would put it on track to become the third-largest military spender globally. This change will improve Japan’s ability to defend itself, modernize its self-defense forces and increase interoperability with U.S. forces to strengthen the functioning of the U.S.-Japan alliance.
The incoming prime minister would do well to take advantage of the position in which Kishida’s administration has left Japan on the world stage.
The increasing defense budget will also fund new priorities intended to “enhance the security and deterrence capabilities of like-minded countries in order to prevent unilateral attempts to change the status quo by force, ensure the peace and stability of the Indo-Pacific region in particular, and create a security environment desirable for Japan,” such as Official Security Assistance (OSA), an initiative intended to complement Official Development Assistance (ODA).
Japan’s OSA pilot projects are taking place in Bangladesh, Fiji, Malaysia and the Philippines. Building on efforts begun during the Abe administration, Kishida also oversaw further changes to Japan’s defense export principles, designed to bolster Tokyo’s role in limited international transfers of lethal defense equipment, which have already helped replenish U.S. stocks of weapons sent to Ukraine. The changes will also allow the sale of a next generation fighter jet Japan is developing in cooperation with the United Kingdom and Italy, another Kishida administration first. Kishida justified the move as necessary to “contribute to the protection of a free and open international order based on the rule of law and to the realization of peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region.”
On the defense and security front more broadly, Kishida also built on changes to Japan’s defense posture begun under Abe. In Japan’s December 2022 national security strategy (NSS) — which is only the country’s second-ever— Kishida’s administration introduced several important changes from the previous Abe-era document that reflected serious shifts in the regional and global security environment. The most noted was its authorization of a “counterstrike” capability for Japan, one that allows Tokyo to acquire the capacity to hit missile-related sites within an attacking country. This was a marked departure from previous policy — based in successive interpretations of Japan’s constitution as allowing only for the defense of Japanese territory from actual attack (not just the likelihood or threat of attack) and preventing “offensive weapons designed to be used only for the mass destruction of another country” — which seemed to hold counterstrike off limits.
Instead of trying to change these interpretations, or the constitution itself — another Abe goal — the NSS situated the new policy within existing restrictions, simply expanding the mechanisms Japan could use to service its “exclusively defense-oriented policy.” Namely, these are weapons that can counter a strike on Japan within enemy territory, but must not be used preemptively and are meant to be deployed in conjunction with existing missile defense systems aimed at incoming missiles over Japanese territory.
A dramatic reorientation in Japan’s assessment of Russia under the 2022 NSS marked the abandonment of Abe’s hopes of negotiating a deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin for the return of Japanese islands seized by the Soviet Union after World War II. While the previous NSS favored cooperation with Russia, in line with the view of Moscow as potential partner in regional stability, the Kishida NSS reclassified Russia as a dangerous spoiler whose “aggression against Ukraine has easily breached the very foundation of the rules that shape the international order” and whose activities around Japan and coordination with China are “of strong security concern.”
The new NSS similarly took a more openly critical stance on China than its predecessor, assessing China’s posture as “the greatest strategic challenge” for Japan’s and the broader international community’s peace and security, and underscoring the need for cooperation with the United States and other like-minded partners in addressing that challenge.
An emphasis on cooperation with partners is another hallmark of the Kishida administration, although one that again built on initiatives begun under Abe. Japan’s relations with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), for example, formalized during the Abe administration with the signing of a partnership agreement and the opening of a Japanese mission to NATO, were kicked into high gear during the past several years. Kishida attended leader-level NATO summits in 2022, 2023 and 2024, embraced the alliance’s Indo-Pacific Partner grouping, and often expressed the conviction that “Ukraine today may be East Asia tomorrow,” and “that the security of Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific is inseparable.”
Indeed, this clearly and openly articulated alignment between Japanese/Indo-Pacific and European/Euro-Atlantic security interests, as well as the Kishida administration’s willingness to reinforce this notion with its support for Ukraine and considerable engagement with European partners, certainly helped cement Japan’s role as a reliable partner on the global stage.
Further along this vein, Japan’s 2023 G7 presidency was marked, among other things, by Kishida’s visit to Ukraine, the first by a post-WWII Japanese leader to an active war zone. Kishida also utilized his G7 leadership term to include regional partners in the meetings of the grouping, with an eye to countering Chinese and Russian influence on the Global South. To this end, the G7 summit in Hiroshima included South Korea, Australia, Comoros, the Cook Islands, India, Indonesia and Vietnam, along with BRICS leader Brazil.
Under Kishida, Japan increased focus on engagement with regional partners more generally. Japan and Australia’s 2022 security cooperation agreement, for example, elevated relations to something of a quasi-alliance. Relations between Japan and the Philippines, which are more aligned on China's maritime behavior since the election of President Fredinand Marcos Jr. in 2022, have also reached a new high as have trilateral U.S.-Japan-Philippines cooperation. Japan has signed reciprocal access agreements with both Australia and the Philippines (as well as with the United Kingdom), which allow bilateral military access to each country’s bases, a status Japan had only shared previously with the United States. For Tokyo, such arrangements facilitate both the training of its and partner security forces, and where the Philippines is concerned, access to positions that may be critical in a Taiwan contingency, a concern about which Japan has been increasingly vocal on the public stage.
Under Kishida, Japan increased focus on engagement with regional partners … with the greatest progress coming with South Korea.
The greatest progress on regional partner engagement has come with South Korea. Much of the credit for improved relations belongs to South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol’s initiative. Kishida was receptive and ready to put the bilateral relationship on better footing, however, a fact demonstrated by details like his decision not to visit the controversial Yasukuni Shrine to Japanese war dead as prime minister, a necessary nod to South Korea’s concerns that Abe failed to make.
In 2023, Kishida and Yoon participated in the first leader-level exchange of visits in more than a decade, as well as the historic Camp David trilateral summit with the United States. The latter aimed at coordinating the efforts of the three countries in the region and building on their respective advantages to ensure stability, the continuation of the rules-based international order, and economic benefits for regional partners, among other efforts. It also aimed to institutionalize trilateral cooperation going forward to better insulate relations even if political winds within Seoul, Tokyo or Washington shift.
Perhaps it is this willingness to invest Japanese energy toward both ramping up internal efforts in support of security and stability, and coordinating with the United States and a variety of partners in a shared effort that best encapsulates Kishida’s foreign policy approach. Ultimately however, Kishida’s foreign policy legacy may come to be seen as a set of pragmatic and dynamic adaptations to a geostrategic environment “at a historic crossroads” — stemming from China’s rise, Russia’s revisionism, and the return of strategic competition — of which that approach is one component part.
Likely less noticed in the United States, where Japan’s defense liberalizations are generally applauded, is the fact that Kishida also took care to address these changing geostrategic realities in a way that tried to preserve, to the extent possible, the cherished principles and self-imposed limitations that have defined Tokyo’s overall foreign policy for decades. This includes underscoring a continued opposition to the pre-emptive use of force regardless of the authorization of counterstrike capability, retaining proscriptions against the transfer of defense equipment to countries in conflict despite the liberalization of defense export principles, and a continued privileging of ODA even with the advent of OSA. Finally, in resigning when he did, Kishida demonstrated an ability to recognize when he no longer had the cachet to push forward further policy adaptations — including on the foreign and defense front — a lesson of note for any future prime minister.