The new post will be held by Takayuki Kobayashi, a 46-year-old up-and-comer who goes by the Twitter name “ Kobahawk.” Since taking office in early October, he created a new cabinet-level position- minister for economic security-that will coordinate government efforts to shore up supply chains, protect critical infrastructure, and counter economic coercion. In recent weeks, Japan’s new prime minister, Fumio Kishida, has gone one step further. Several years later, he introduced an economic statecraft function in the National Security Council and established units in government ministries to focus on emerging security challenges. Because of this, Japan has been quicker than Germany to adapt its national security approach to a new era, where the lines between trade, technology, security, and human rights are increasingly blurred.īack in 2013, then-Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe oversaw the most ambitious reorganization of Japan’s foreign and security apparatus since the World War II, creating a National Security Council and issuing the country’s first National Security Strategy. Japan is on the front line of what may be a new one.
Germany was on the front line of the old Cold War. And both rely heavily on the United States for their security. Both have strong pacifist currents running through their foreign policies.
Both emerged defeated and devastated from World War II to become leading economic and technological powers. Germany and Japan have much in common beyond their complex relationship with China. In doing so, Germany can learn a lot from Japan, another country with deep economic ties to China that has grown increasingly wary of Beijing’s authoritarian shift at home and growing assertiveness abroad under Chinese President Xi Jinping. One of the biggest foreign-policy challenges for a new German government will be to find the right balance among economic priorities, national security interests, and the defense of democratic values in its relationship with China.
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