Brent Scowcroft Center Resident Senior Fellow Robert Manning writes for Nikkei Asian Review on the increase in overlapping defense ties between the United States, Japan, and other Asia-Pacific countries as they look to counter China’s increasingly assertive military posture:
“Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s visit to India on Friday is just the latest chapter in a growing but largely unnoticed trend among Asia-Pacific nations: an unprecedented, burgeoning web of overlapping defense ties with the U.S., Japan and one another. The trend has taken off in response to China’s more assertive posture in the East and South China Seas, creating a classic bandwagon effect in an effort to counterbalance Beijing. It is also a reflection of growing regional economic integration.
Abe’s move to sell ShinMaywa US-2 seaplanes to India is a test-case for Tokyo’s new defense export policies, emblematic of the maritime focus of Asia-Pacific security cooperation. Discussion of a Japan-India civil-nuclear cooperation accord has both economic and security dimensions.”