Japan’s Maritime Rejuvenation: Strategy, Statecraft, and the Indo-Pacific Century

My motivation in examining Japan as a comprehensive maritime power in the twenty-first century grew in part out of the research for my last book, To Rule Eurasia’s Waves, that focused mainly on China, Russia, and India and their respective, growing maritime embrace, from Europe and Southwest Asia to the Indo-Pacific and the Arctic. What I realized while researching that book was that Japan had also significantly expanded its maritime power over the past decade or more, and there were no great books on the topic. This latest book, Leaning Seaward: Japan as a Maritime Great Power, therefore, came together in a wonderfully organic manner and at an opportune moment.

Japan’s maritime statecraft is best understood as extending far beyond the development of naval capabilities alone. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s tenure helped shape Japan’s maritime strategic vision for the twenty-first century. His use of Japan’s tools of maritime statecraft, including security and geoeconomics, has left a significant legacy that continues to unfold. As China’s rise has altered East Asia’s maritime security dynamic, successive Japanese prime ministers, including the present-day Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, have continued to pursue Abe’s strategic vision of a Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP). For the past several years alone, Japan’s government has continued to invest significantly in a comprehensive spectrum of maritime statecraft tools that extend beyond the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) and the Japan Coast Guard (JCG). The Japanese government, for example, has made geoeconomics, or economic statecraft, an important pillar of its comprehensive maritime strategy. Such geoeconomic components include Japanese shipping and shipbuilding, domestic port innovations and investments, energy security (imports, seabed mining, and other green energy solutions), fisheries, and aquaculture, among other elements. Moreover, Japan’s government has recognized the great potential of its ocean, or blue, economy and its ability to support future economic expansion and prosperity at home and internationally. Indeed, Japan’s government, especially through agencies such as the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), has fared well with its development aid and investment programs tied to foreign port and terminal projects across the Indo-Pacific, akin to China’s Maritime Silk Road. Across the Indo-Pacific, Japan has been a trusted partner for several decades and continues to invest in many regional ports as part of FOIP that promotes both economic prosperity and greater connectivity.

The Indo-Pacific as Japan’s Strategic Compass

The Indo-Pacific has become and will likely remain central to the government of Japan’s long-term strategic vision. On 2 May 2026, for example, Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi delivered a foreign policy speech at Vietnam National University in Hanoi, Vietnam. The speech was framed as an updated vision of Japan’s Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP) for the future. In the speech, Takaichi stated, “More than 400 years ago, from the South China Sea, through the Taiwan Strait, and on to the East China Sea, Japanese and Vietnamese people engaged in dynamic trade. Together, we have enjoyed the blessings of free and open seas.”

For the past decade, Japan’s government has carried out FOIP, a strategic vision originally championed by Takaichi’s predecessor and mentor, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Successive Japanese governments have sought to uphold and reinforce FOIP’s values of a rules-based world order and its significant maritime characteristics. Abe once posted on the occasion of Japan’s “Marine Day” that “Based on a shift in thinking from ‘a country protected by the sea’ to ‘a country that protects the sea,’ Japan is determined to maintain stable sea lanes and defend our maritime interests within our territorial waters and EEZ.”

In Takaichi’s May speech, she spoke of three updated priorities for her government in carrying out a FOIP of the future: “First, building economic infrastructure for the age of AI and data, including strengthening supply chain resilience for energy and critical materials. Second, co-creation of economic growth opportunities through public-private collaboration and rule sharing. Third, enhancing cooperation in the field of security to ensure regional peace and stability.”

Takaichi’s third priority explicitly promotes maritime security. Toward the end of her speech, she noted, “Regional peace and stability are fundamental prerequisites for economic prosperity, and regional supply chains are underpinned by the safe and open navigation of sea lanes. Maritime security [is] a key element of FOIP. Japan has consistently supported maritime security through the enhancement of maritime law enforcement capacities of Southeast Asian countries.”

Responding to China’s Rise

China’s rise has been a major catalyst for Japan’s maritime resurgence. China’s rise over the past decade has led arguably to more significant shifts in the world order away from the U.S. and the West. Japan’s Self-Defense Force, and JMSDF in particular, have adapted on multiple fronts, but perhaps most telling is how much they have engaged with other partners and allies beyond the United States. Part of the objective in the government of Japan’s 2022 national security strategy and defense documents was to improve and deepen its global partnerships. In the past several years alone, Japan’s government has established several new partnerships—many of which are maritime-oriented—while also reinforcing and deepening prior defense agreements with such countries as the United Kingdom, France, Australia, India, the Philippines, and many others. These types of bilateral engagements and alliance-building have helped advance Japan’s broader military, maritime, and defense objectives across the Indo-Pacific and beyond, while diversifying and strengthening its defense supply chain networks. Furthermore, Japan has emerged as an important leader and voice at various security-oriented regional and international forums such as the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) and ASEAN. Many of the initiatives strongly backed by Japan’s government have also taken on an important saltwater component, contributing to Japan’s further rise as a maritime great power. As China becomes more dominant in the maritime domain, it is important to have an equally powerful advocate, such as Japan, that can lead by example and act transparently to help defend a rules-based international order.

Navigating Climate Change

Climate change is increasingly shaping Japan’s maritime outlook and strategic thinking. According to official Japanese documents, climate change is seen as a significant threat to Japan’s economy, national security, and thus its future prosperity. Japan’s most recent National Security Strategy affirmed, “Climate change is a security issue that affects the very existence of humankind. Extreme weather events due to climate change significantly impact Japan’s national security in various ways, including through more frequent and severe natural disasters, increased responses to disasters, more serious energy and food problems, a decrease in national land area, and increased use of the Arctic sea routes.” Recent headlines also reference a decline in annual fish catch due to record-breaking heat, rising ocean temperatures, and ocean acidification. While concerned about the existential challenges posed by climate change to its people and the world, Japan’s government views climate change as an area ripe for greater global leadership due to the vast economic opportunities arising from new and emerging green technologies capable of slowing or reducing human-induced emissions.

As the world’s fifth-largest carbon dioxide producer, Japan’s government has emerged as a powerful voice and role model in promoting the United Nations (UN) Framework Convention on Climate Change, which addresses ways to combat a warming planet and the world’s oceans. In 2020, Japan’s government vowed to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, with direct implications for the transformation of Japan’s maritime industrial sector. This includes an environmentally active stance to protect and adapt its maritime economy and other related industries. Government support and subsidies have helped, for example, to accelerate carbon-neutral research and development already under way, as well as spur new industrial innovation and the adoption of cutting-edge technologies. Preserving the well-being and natural resources of the World Ocean will therefore grow in prominence in the coming decades as Japan seeks to leverage its vibrant blue economy.

The Future of the Indo-Pacific’s Balance of Power

Japan’s maritime strategy also sheds light on the evolving balance of power across the Indo-Pacific. Japan’s maritime rejuvenation is unfolding amid significant movement and discord across the global commons, including the growing threats posed by both China and climate change. China’s maritime rise, in particular, has been impressive, but Japan’s trajectory and emergence as a maritime great power have also been noteworthy and often underappreciated. With a grand strategic vision embodied in FOIP, Japan has been one of the few nations able to directly challenge China’s growing maritime prominence through deliberate diplomatic, geoeconomic, coast guard, and naval means. Frequently, a country’s status is measured by naval power and other projection capabilities, which are vital attributes that Japan’s government has invested significantly in through the JMSDF. But Japan’s government has endowed an array of other tools of maritime statecraft that have enabled its maritime great-power ascent, including support for shipping and shipbuilding, foreign port development, new technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, the JCG, and a whole host of other maritime geoeconomic tools. It’s all to say that Japan’s leadership on the world stage and growing focus on the security, safety, and sustainability of the global commons—the backbone of the world economy—is needed more than ever.

The views expressed here are the author’s alone and do not reflect the official policy or position of the National Defense University, the Department of War, or the US government.

Disclaimer: Views expressed are of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Statecraft Institute.