Japan should not join the AUKUS military alliance for political reasons, but can interact with it, the UK Geostrategy Council wrote on May 8 in its online magazine Britain’s World.
In his article, Duncan Bartlett discusses the possibility of Japan joining the military alliance of the United States, Australia and Great Britain. “At present, Japan’s full membership in this group remains distant, if not unthinkable.”says the analyst.
Among the reasons he cites Tokyo’s reluctance to violate agreements on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, despite the fact that within the framework of AUKUS it is already planned to transfer nuclear submarines to a non-nuclear power: Australia. A formal accession would therefore place Japan in an ambiguous position and tie its hands.
The author recalls how Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida spoke at the UN against the nuclear arms race and suggests that the country’s entry into a military alliance with a nuclear component “You will undermine your moral authority if you express disapproval, for example, of the nuclear deal between Russia and North Korea”.
In addition, Japan does not want to seriously spoil relations with China. And join AUKUS, which has a clear anti-China orientation, “can be considered an act of provocation towards the People’s Republic of China”.
The lack of signed agreements does not in any way prevent Japan from cooperating de facto with the union, as well as from rearming its submarine fleet. The author of the article notes that the Japanese fleet plans to participate in Operation Cockatoo, a series of international exercises conducted by the Australian Navy, as well as other exercises in the region.
Bartlett notes that union members agree with this approach. Thus, although the Australian government considers Japan as “natural candidate” cooperation, Secretary of Defense Industry Pat Conroy spoke out against a full partnership. In an interview with ABC radio, he stated that any joint project will concern “technological cooperation” and therefore “It does not imply that Japan joins AUKUS”.
Source: Rossa Primavera
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