Trace the Eu-japan Partnership Steps
A marked advance in Eu-japanese relations followed their recent Economic Partnership Agreement and Strategic Partnership Agreement (EPA and SPA) to bolster bilateral political and security co-operation. This edited volume collects European and Japanese academics to consider the historical and contemporary relationship in a variety of functional areas, including political and security co-operation, economic engagement and the influence of external actors in shaping the current relationship.
Some change is driven by an emerging activism in Japanese foreign policy, in particular by Abe’s administration; some by the more transactional, unilateral approach of US President Donald Trump’s administration. The EPA reflects a major step in trade multilateralism, but the SPA (at least in one contributor’s view) is more aspirational than substantive and seeks to codify existing forms of collaboration while advancing a wider, yet to be realized, agenda for co-operation across broadly defined security areas. The “EU and Japan have tremendous potential,” the editors note, and capacity to offset the worrying trend towards illiberalism in global politics. Success in this will require personal leadership, vision and a confident ability to forcefully defend multilateralism and a willingness to work jointly with both soft and hard power to resolve a number of global conflicts.
The EU and Japan have capacity to offset the worrying trend towards illiberalism.