Japan should grow security ties with Global South: Analysts

Defence report warns of East Asia security ramifications as China grows its influence

- Walter Sim

TOKYO - Japan should grow its security cooperation with the so-called Global South, experts said, after a Japanese Defence Ministry think-tank report observed that Chinese outreach to developing nations has become increasingly suffused with a military edge.

The yearly China Security Report 2025, which was released on Dec 17 by the National Institute for Defence Studies (NIDS), was themed The Rising Global South And China.

Its four authors, led by NIDS senior research fellow Masaaki Yatsuzuka, noted how Beijing's approach to the Global South is evolving beyond infrastructure-related aid to "encroach into the realm of missiles, drones and other key weapons of modern warfare" such as surveillance systems.

In response to the report, Dr Satoru Nagao, a Tokyo-based non-resident fellow at the Hudson Institute think-tank, observed that Japan has long taken a non-military approach to aid, although this is changing.

"Japan's role in supporting Western diplomacy has until very recently been non-military. While Japan has a will to expand its military role further, its movement is still very slow," he told The Straits Times.

For instance, Japan had in April 2023 begun a new "overseas security assistance" framework - a counterpoint to the traditional "overseas development assistance". Seven countries, including the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia, have been chosen so far to receive surveillance systems, radars and other non-lethal military equipment.

Japan, which previously banned defence exports, now allows limited arms exports, and is eyeing transfers to South-east Asia, ST has reported.

There are reportedly plans to rope in Saudi Arabia for a trilateral project between Japan, Britain and Italy to build a next-generation fighter jet which, Dr Nagao said, will cement Tokyo's interests in the Middle East.