It is time for the U.S.-Japan relationship to evolve, in the Middle East. For both countries, the announcement of a China-brokered agreement between Saudi Arabia and Iran, along with President Xi Jinping's visit to Moscow, was a stark wake-up call, perhaps even a "Sputnik moment." The good news is there is strong momentum for such a transformational pivot. Japan has dramatically transformed its relationship with Israel, the only true democracy in the region, over the past decade. While maintaining its longstanding ties to many Arab nations around the Gulf, Tokyo now views Israel in a completely different way than it did in the past. Policy planners are embracing Israel as a strategic partner across a wide range of technologies, not only in the commercial realm. Japan is open to expanding bilateral defense-industrial collaboration. These developments offer an unprecedented opportunity for two of the United States' linchpin alliances to form a new foundation of expanded partnership in the Middle East.
China is seeking to capitalize on a perceived waning of U.S. influence in the region. This thrust does not, however, diminish the attraction of a U.S.-Japan-Israel collaboration for Arab partners searching for new growth as they prepare for a post-carbon economic future. The Abraham Accords of 2020 reflect a strong and growing willingness on the part of the region to work with Israel in ways that would have been unthinkable just a decade ago. Against this backdrop, the two biggest draws in working with Japan for new entrepreneurs around the Gulf is access to consumer demand in Asia alongside stronger footing in the United States market. Other nations can no longer ensure that dual pathway. Taken together, the enormous start-up energy from Israel, the surge-up capacity of America, and the scale-up reach of Japan represent an engine for unprecedented growth for post-carbon innovation originating in the region.
Each of these three nations faces the challenges that come with being mature industrial economies. Japan is grappling with unprecedented aging, the U.S. with significant wealth disparity and inequity, and Israel with political and social divisions. Yet these societies are fundamentally based on freedom, the right of assembly and expression, and democratic processes; values and vibrance which in turn underpin free and open economies, respect for intellectual property, and rules-based markets. As the world confronts the need for sustainable development and growth that is either carbon neutral or carbon negative, the highest stakes will be in the Middle East, where economies have been most reliant on fossil fuel exports. With future economic viability and stability in this region depending on finding substitutes for these exports, no three nations are better equipped to leverage their shared interests and experience in helping build a new, values-based economic expansion.
The past decade has also seen the emergence of a new potential partner in the Middle East for each of these three nations: India. India can play a critical role in this geostrategic geometry. India today is the world's largest democracy, and it has long been deeply connected to the Middle East. In recent years, India's strategic, economic, and technological relations with the United States, Japan, and Israel have deepened even further. There is now significant potential to extend an arc of development cooperation in the Middle East, anchored by these four countries, and in concert with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia. The advent of the I2U2 Agreement in July 2022 between Israel, India, the UAE, and the United States is a building block in that effort. Japan should join this initiative. It would bring considerable capacity to the members' collective priorities, including health, mobility, energy, and space.
The intersection of several factors has created an unprecedented opportunity for Japan to assume a leadership role in the Middle East. First, Japan is America's closest ally, but it is not America. No bilateral partnership can do more for the world right now than that of Japan and the United States. At the same time, Japan has its own unique, robust, longstanding network of relations and history in the region, including with the Palestinians. These relationships place Japan in a strong position: firmly aligned with freedom, human rights, and democracy, but also having authored its own interpretation of equity, inclusive capitalism, and social welfare. In many ways, Japan offers a different take on how a society, albeit with its own challenges and needs for reform, can balance prosperity with inclusion. For many nations Japan is appealing in ways that the United States, at least currently, is not, an asynchronous status that actually strengthens what this alliance can do.
Japan is the first non-Western nation in the modern era to achieve economic and technological superpower status, while anchoring an alliance that underpins peace, stability, and regional prosperity for well over half of the world's population. The "Japanese miracle," achieved through hard work and persistence over nearly half a century, remains the clearest example the world has of a nation that can successfully and fundamentally change its course, achieving vast wealth and respect in one lifetime and becoming a model for its entire region. This history has earned Japan enormous credibility and stature in the Middle East, and it is a core reason why so many nations in the region would welcome greater Japanese participation, partnership, and leadership.
Finally, Japan has been on this trajectory for several years. Former prime minister Shinzo Abe foresaw a transition in Japan's relationship with the United States to a fuller alliance, one of hope, with Japan not only as a partner but as a leader, for both nations and more importantly for the world. Prior to his tragic assassination in 2022, he assumed the mantle of leadership in advocating for the Trans-Pacific Partnership, offered a new vision and agenda for a free and open Indo-Pacific, and even proposed hosting peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. He was the major architect of Japan's new relationship with Israel, based on Japan's own strategic priorities and on an understanding that Arab attitudes toward Israel have changed to match the shifting technological and economic realities of the region. Current Prime Minister Fumio Kishida again showed that Japan is willing to lead in advancing free and open societies this week in his visit to New Delhi and historic trip to Kyiv, a stark contrast to the Xi-Putin meeting. He is proposing a deeper partnership with India across the Indo-Pacific. Both this expanding partnership and the emerging potential for greater collaboration with South Korea present timely and important opportunities to explore extra-regional cooperation.
The Biden administration has encouraged Japan to play a more assertive role in bolstering its partnerships in the Indo-Pacific region, and the time has come to do the same in the Middle East together with Arab friends and counterparts. The question that Washington, Tokyo, and Jerusalem should be examining is not what other nations, with different worldviews and values, are offering in the Middle East. Rather, it should be what we, with our own shared values, alliances and assets together are prepared to offer to bolster stability, create new growth, and help prepare the region for a post-carbon world in which innovation, inclusion, and equity will increasingly be the determinants of prosperity.
Joshua W. Walker is president and CEO of Japan Society. Andrew M. Saidel is president and CEO of Dynamic Strategies Asia.
The views expressed in this article are the writers' own.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
