What's in the New Japan Southeast Asia Security Assistance Chatter?
Plus the danger of lose-lose mentality; new semiconductor strategy; regional port wars; future artificial intelligence investments and much more.
Greetings to new readers and welcome all to the latest edition of the weekly ASEAN Wonk BulletBrief! If you haven’t already, you can upgrade to a paid subscription for $5 a month/$50 a year below to receive full posts by inserting your email address and then selecting an annual or monthly option. You can visit this page for more on pricing for institutions, groups as well as discounts.
For this iteration of ASEAN Wonk BulletBrief, we are looking at:
Assessing the geopolitical significance of inroads in Japan’s security assistance to Southeast Asian states and implications for the wider Indo-Pacific;
Mapping of regional developments including alliance spotlight; cross-border dispute management and conscription rollout;
Charting evolving geopolitical, geoeconomic and security trends such as on the danger of a “lose-lose” cooperation mindset; intensifying regional port wars and a notable first in cross-border carbon inroads;
Tracking and analysis of industry developments and quantitative indicators including a new semiconductor strategy; fresh artificial intelligence investments and more;
And much more! ICYMI, check out our take on how Prabowo Subianto could shape Indonesia’s foreign policy if the final vote count confirms his declared victory in the country’s elections, and our earlier, wide-ranging interview with former U.S. ambassador to Indonesia Robert Blake. Thank you also to the media outlets that have cited our insights this week, including Nikkei Asia and the Australian Financial Review whose views you can read here and here.
WonkCount: 1,856 words (~9 minutes reading time)
Alliance Spotlight; Cross-Border Dispute Management; Conscription Rollout & More
The Danger of Lose-Lose Cooperation; Mapping the State of Democracy & Assessing Sustainability Goals
“As Chinese-US rivalry advances, observers worry that the trend toward minilateral frameworks comes at the expense of more inclusive, multilateral approaches," notes the new iteration of the Indo-Pacific chapter of the report by the Munich Security Conference. The overall theme of the report, entitled “Lose-Lose,” explores the idea of lose-lose dynamics if governments prioritize relative payoffs rather than engaging in positive sum cooperation, including continuing military buildups (link).
Changes in Indo-Pacific Defense Spending, 2022-2023 (figures in billions and percentages color coded)
“South Asia and Southeast Asia already had the lowest scores of all the continent’s sub-regions, and setbacks in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Thailand mean that the two regions have fallen even further behind,” argues the Asia portion of The Economist’s Democracy Index. The index points to continued troubles for democracy more generally, with less than 8 percent of the world’s population living under full democracies and nearly 40 percent under authoritarian rule, up from nearly 37 percent in 2022 (link).
Democracy Index Scores, Asia vs. Global Average by Category & Annual Change
"The region will not achieve all 17 SDGs before 2062 – marking a significant 32-year delay," concludes the latest iteration of a UN report on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Though Southeast Asia is not immune from this lag between where the world ought to be by now and where it is, progress is mixed, with regression on climate action, modest advances in investing in sustainable cities, and greater progress in curbing poverty (link).
Snapshot of SDG Progress in Southeast Asia
What's in the New Japan Southeast Asia Security Assistance Chatter?
What’s Behind It
Reports surfaced about Japan’s ongoing efforts to boost maritime security for Southeast Asian states. The efforts include the development of a ten-year plan to support priority countries in the region as part of a broader strategic approach that has been evolving over the past few years in this realm as well as Japan’s Indo-Pacific strategy thinking more generally1. This comes amid Southeast Asia’s own challenging geopolitical landscape, including evolving dynamics and institutional responses on the South China Sea and intensifying U.S.-China competition and potential crises.
Select Key Japan-Southeast Asia Maritime-Related Developments in 2023
The reports are just the latest spotlight on Tokyo’s efforts in this realm. As noted through most of 2023 on ASEAN Wonk, Japan has continued to be actively engaged in various lines of effort on maritime security with Southeast Asian states, including new pacts, visits, dialogues and assistance (see above timeline). That said, there has been a greater focus on ASEAN countries prioritized for Official Security Assistance (OSA), a new cooperative framework set outlined in April 2023 after appearing in Tokyo’s National Security Strategy in December 20222. Japan moved to concretize this with states such as Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam in late 2023 leading up to the ASEAN-Japan commemorative summit3. That work continues into 2024. To take one example, a Japanese delegation was just in the Philippines in January to assess how OSA and other forms of assistance could be leveraged for maritime domain awareness4.
Why It Matters
Inroads on maritime security assistance suggest where Japan is prioritizing its resources in Southeast Asia and the wider Indo-Pacific. Japan and ASEAN states already agree that maritime security is a shared priority: indeed, one future-looking assessment out to the latter part of this century ranked the maintenance of a rules-based maritime order as a “very high priority” as part of the “primary and pressing challenge” of building an order that maintains peace and stability5. More concretely, Japan has already sent indications about what the outlines of OSA could look like both privately and publicly for Southeast Asian states as talks were carried out during the past few months and the flow of assistance continued (see table below for a snapshot of select key developments)6.
Select Key Related Developments in Japan’s Security Assistance to Southeast Asian States in 2023
