Australia’s 2024 national defence strategy describes Japan as an ‘indispensable partner’ for achieving regional peace and security. But the prominence of the growing defence relationship between Japan and Australia, while vital, risks obscuring opportunities to partner with Pacific countries—including Australia and New Zealand— to build regional resilience.

Specifically, Japan could be included in building resilient communications in the Pacific. Japanese capital, technology and expertise could also contribute to regional humanitarian response mechanisms. Such initiatives are urgently needed as the region copes with the accelerating effects of climate change. It could also be a timely expression of Tokyo’s support for the combined Australia-Pacific bid to host the COP31 climate summit in 2026.

Given the worsening strategic outlook, Japan could also play a role in helping the Pacific prepare for potential conflict in the Indo-Pacific.

In the Pacific spirit of Talanoa, the first step is to gather and listen.

In March, ASPI convened Pacific, Australian and Japanese experts from government, industry and civil society in Brisbane to scope the opportunities for greater practical cooperation on resilience. Brisbane was chosen because it is a gateway city connecting Australia to its Pacific neighbours.

On top of the policy workshop, the delegates visited the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s humanitarian warehouse, which is a primary hub for distributing aid to the region during natural disasters and other crises. The delegates were then briefed by the commander of the Pacific Response Group (PRG) about its recent deployment to Vanuatu.

The following conclusions and recommendations are my own, but draw on discussions at the Brisbane workshop; ASPI’s Defence Conference in June; and meetings hosted by the Sasakawa Peace Foundation, a Japanese think tank, that preceded Japan’s 10th Pacific Islands Leaders Meeting in Tokyo in 2024.

Recommendation 1: the Japanese government could do more to help the Pacific develop and support resilient access to the internet and telecommunications, including during a crisis. This should include contingencies for the loss or impairment of critical infrastructure, such as damage to subsea cables or interruptions caused by cyber intrusions.

Japan is well placed to contribute. Japan, Australia and the United States worked together to build a subsea cable to Palau, and some Japanese companies are at the cutting-edge of telecommunications and satellite technology. As well as having its own resources, Japan’s participation might galvanise support from other partner countries, multinational development banks and private capital.

That support would be welcome if it aligned with the principles for quality infrastructure investment that Japan has championed through the G20, which aim to ensure transparency, value-for-money, environmental sustainability and respect for national sovereignty. China’s frequent disregard for such standards is one of the reasons why Japan has worked with Australia and others to offer the Pacific alternative options for infrastructure financing, construction and maintenance.

One practical area of focus could be helping Pacific officials and institutions conduct online business and communications via websites and email addresses with a country code top-level domain (ccTLD) that is locally managed, equivalent to the ‘.au’ domain name system used in Australia.

At present, many government officials and agencies across the Pacific rely on services hosted offshore, such as Facebook and private Gmail accounts, to communicate with each other and the public. These platforms could be inaccessible during a crisis, including if subsea cables were cut. Helping the Pacific shift official communications to domains hosted and managed domestically would help ensure the availability of reliable and verifiable information during a national emergency.

Japan could support this work by leveraging existing networks and forums, including the Pacific Digital Development Initiative that Australian and Japanese foreign and defence ministers announced at their meeting last year.

But ministerial involvement is not always required to make practical progress. The government-endorsed administrator of Australia’s ‘.au’ domain, auDA, is already working with its Pacific counterparts to develop ccTLD capacity, as part of wider efforts to build cyber resilience. This group will be discussing resilience at the Pacific Islands Internet Governance Forum and Pacific ccTLD Forum in Samoa this week.

Recommendation 2: Japan could play a more prominent role in the coordination of humanitarian assistance across the Pacific, including supplying infrastructure and technologies to support community-based responses and the distribution of supplies in a crisis.

Japan already helps the Pacific deal with natural disasters and humanitarian emergencies. For instance, in response to the 2022 Tongan volcanic eruption, Japan dispatched disaster relief specialists from its aid agency and from the Japan Self-Defense Forces. This included the JSDF operating flights from Queensland and contributing personnel to coordination hubs in Australia. Japan also contributes to regional initiatives such as the Pacific Humanitarian Warehousing Program, which aims to pre-position supplies for use immediately before or in the first 48 hours after a disaster.

But Japan could do more, if encouraged by Pacific countries and enabled by smoother coordination with Australia. For example, several Japanese companies specialise in low-complexity, easy-to-use technologies that help remote communities respond to disasters. While these technologies were designed for cut-off villages in Japan’s mountainous regions, they seem suited to Pacific terrain and technical requirements, provided they were pre-positioned and communities were trained to use them.

This example highlights the potential benefit to the Pacific of coupling Japan’s technology and infrastructure expertise with Australia’s large regional footprint and capacity-building programs. A reference at the next Australia-Japan summit or in a defence and foreign ministerial joint statement might help generate momentum towards more cooperation.

As ASPI’s Blake Johnson and Adam Ziogas have argued, Japan could also explore ways to support the PRG as it develops, perhaps working alongside other observers in the South Pacific Defence Ministers’ Meeting.

Recommendation 3: Japan could contribute to regional contingency plans for a potential conflict in the Indo-Pacific, particularly to the coordination of maritime security along the north-south route from Japan to Australia, which passes close to Palau, Federated States of Micronesia, Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands. This route could become a major and contested shipping lane in a regional conflict, especially if passage through the South China Sea is constrained.

Many Pacific leaders recognise that their countries would be affected by a regional conflict. Speaking at the ASPI’s Defence Conference in June, PNG Defence Minister Billy Joseph said that the security and defence of PNG and Australia are inextricable. Similar connections underpin Japan’s longstanding maritime security cooperation with Palau, FSM and Marshall Islands.

As Joseph said, ‘when two elephants fight, the grass suffers’. But the extent of the Pacific’s strategic importance and vulnerability in a potential conflict may not yet be fully appreciated across the region, posing risks to preparedness and deterrence. Japan can play a role in closing those information and capability gaps.

Japanese ministers already have opportunities for high-level conversations with their Pacific counterparts at Japan’s Pacific Islands Leaders Meeting and the Japan Pacific Islands Defence Dialogue. But regional conflict preparedness is so sensitive that some conversations may be better broached initially through discreet bilateral channels and informal small groups, such as the people-to-people networks nurtured by joint military exercises, including Talisman Sabre, which Japan is part of. Although Japan will not participate in Talisman Sabre activities in PNG this year, there might be potential for the JSDF to contribute to future activities in PNG or elsewhere in the Pacific.

Inclusive forums that engage police, emergency response and national security officials from across the region are particularly important, rather than engaging only the five Pacific countries with militaries: Fiji, PNG, Tonga, Australia and New Zealand. For instance, Japan could explore increasing its profile and contribution to the Joint Heads of Pacific Security, where it is an observer.

With the political will, Tokyo could expand its official security assistance, which is separate to development aid, to include Pacific island countries without militaries. But this step would require thorough consultation across the region and should align with the priorities agreed by the Pacific Island Forum in the 2050 Strategy for Blue Pacific Continent. Otherwise, China, Russia and other external powers may use Japan’s actions as an excuse to destabilise the Pacific with arms transfers.

In summary, Japan could make a greater contribution to resilience without undermining the principle that gaps in regional security should be filled by Pacific countries, which Australian Minister for Pacific Island Affairs Pat Conroy reiterated at the ASPI Defence Conference. Pitching-in does not open a pathway to full membership of Pacific regional forums for Japan any more than it would for China or other external powers.

As Joseph explained in a podcast interview with ASPI, the rules of the post-war international order are rapidly being rewritten and the best way to deal with this is through frank dialogue, where big countries must be prepared to listen to what small countries have to say. At ASPI’s policy workshop in Brisbane, the Pacific delegates did most of the talking and the Japanese showed their eagerness to listen.