Economic security in focus: Japan, Germany to hold high-level intergovernmental talks
The two nations eye strengthening bilateral cooperation to realize a free and open Indo-Pacific and achieve other goals by holding intergovernmental consultations that will be attended by their leaders and relevant ministers on a regular basis
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Wikimedia Commons
Tokyo: Japan and Germany are expected to hold their first top-level intergovernmental talks in Japan in March with key focus on economic security.
The two nations eye strengthening “bilateral cooperation to realize a free and open Indo-Pacific and achieve other goals by holding intergovernmental consultations that will be attended by their leaders and relevant ministers on a regular basis,” The Japan News reported.
Japan is a member of Quad alongside Australia, India, and the US.
Agenda
The main agenda of the envisaged first meeting is expected to be economic security. As per the report, the meeting is scheduled to be attended by Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, as well as the foreign and other ministers of the two nations.
Besides this, among other key focuses of the meeting will be strengthening of supply chains and the energy and food crises that have become serious due to Russia-Ukraine war.
In order to discuss issues with countries that are strategically important to it, Germany uses such intergovernmental talks as a framework. It has already launched such talks with China and India and is formulating its basic foreign and security policies and strategies on China, the progress of which the German side is expected to explain.
On the other hand, Japan wishes to promote security cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region with Britain, France, Germany and other countries, in a bid to hold back China’s aggressive maritime expansion.
Japan-Germany ties
Back in March 2021, Germany and Japan signed an agreement on the security of information, while a German Navy frigate made a port call in Japan in November later in the year.
Later on, Eurofighter jets from Germany were dispatched to Japan for the first time to conduct joint exercises with the Air Self-Defense Force in September last year.
In last November, foreign and defense ministers from the two sides held two-plus-two talks for the first time in person. During the meeting, they agreed to hold such meetings once a year.
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