Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's landmark three-day visit to Central Asia, beginning Friday, is poised to challenge the existing geopolitical balance in the region.
The Central Asia + Japan group will hold its inaugural summit in Astana, Kazakhstan, where Kishida, supported by a delegation of 50 Japanese business leaders, will unveil a strategic $2 billion economic support package.
During the August 9-12 trip, Kishida is also scheduled to visit Uzbekistan and Mongolia.
Japan’s foreign ministry said on X that the meeting marks the 20th anniversary of the Central Asia + Japan Dialogue, though it is the first such meeting at this level. “The friendships built over these last two decades will form the foundation for further cooperation & partnerships for decades to come,” the posting said.
Experts say that as Central Asia's natural resources and its strategic roles in trade and security attract global interest, Japan is seeking to counter Russia's and China’s dominance in the region with alternative models for trade and governance.
“The visit shows Japan’s desire somewhat to counter, or perhaps more realistically, to mitigate the historically closer economic engagement with Central Asian countries that Russia and China have had,” said Koichi Nakano, professor of political science at Sophia University in Japan.
“But it would seem unrealistic to think that Japan can quickly ‘flip’ them to its side by ditching their close ties with Russia and China in economic and security terms,” he told VOA.
In the five post-Soviet Central Asian countries — Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan — China is the leading exporter, boosted by its Belt and Road Initiative and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
Meanwhile, Russia exerts substantial influence through energy exports, labor migration and regional security, particularly via the Collective Security Treaty Organization and its military presence in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.
China hosted a summit with Central Asian leaders in May 2023, followed by a high-level meeting organized by the European Union in June. The United States and Germany then held their own summit in September.
Japan has maintained diplomatic relations with Central Asian countries since their independence in the early 1990s. In August 2004, Japan established the regional framework called the Central Asia + Japan Dialogue. Subsequently, other countries, including the U.S., India and South Korea, have initiated similar diplomatic frameworks with the region.
Cautious alliances
According to Nakano, Central Asian countries are cautious about being dominated by Russia and China.
“But now that the tension between Japan, on the one hand, and Russia and China, on the other hand, is rising, there is a stronger reason for Japan to boost its ties with the Central Asian countries,” Nakano said.
Those tensions have escalated because of Japan’s support for Western sanctions against Russia and disputes over the Kuril Islands. Japan’s concerns about China’s military activities have also strained relations.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on Wednesday issued a statement criticizing the Tokyo-led summit as "Japan's attempts to penetrate Central Asia.”
"We have no doubt that our partners from Central Asia, with their wisdom, will be able to distinguish approaches in favor of mutually beneficial cooperation from plans to reduce their countries to the position of a neocolonial appendage of the Western camp,” she said in the statement.
"We hope that the destructiveness of such a prospect and the serious costs of losing full-blooded ties with Russia are quite obvious to them.”
Domestic motives
Hiromoto Kaji, professor at Aichi University in Japan, said that while the new summit framework with Central Asia might seem like a foreign policy move, it is actually driven by Japan’s internal political factors.
“The new cooperation framework that Prime Minister Kishida has now proposed does not fundamentally change the policy objectives. Rather, Prime Minister Kishida may be seeking to establish ‘a diplomatic legacy’ in preparation for the upcoming LDP [Liberal Democratic Party] presidential election,” Kaji told VOA.
Kishida’s LDP will hold elections in September to choose its next party president.
Tsuyoshi Nojima, a professor at Daito Bunka University in Japan, said Japan enjoys a higher level of goodwill in Central Asia and the Middle East than the United States.
“In Asia, the U.S., Japan, China and Russia are all competing for influence — one in Southeast Asia and one in Central Asia. Japan is effectively helping the U.S. manage relationships with Central Asian countries,” Nojima told VOA.
Democratic engagement
Anders Corr, publisher of the Journal of Political Risk, says Japan’s summit in Central Asia is a positive development that could introduce greater democratic influence in the region.
“The summit is focused on bringing Japanese diplomacy and businesses to the region, which will assist in democratic influence efforts through economic incentives,” Corr told VOA.
Corr also said democracies will need to solidify any gains in the region through a combination of business incentives and sanctions aimed at addressing authoritarianism and human rights abuses.
“Such incentives and disincentives can only be reliably based upon the economic and military strength and unity of the democracies more broadly as they face off against increasingly belligerent autocracies, including Iran, that surround Central Asia,” Corr said.
After more than 30 years of independence, citizens in Central Asian countries at varying levels continue to face restrictions on press freedom, civil liberties and political rights as they endure authoritarian practices.
Chung-Hsi Tu of VOA Mandarin contributed to this report.
