Japan is selling patrol vessels to the Philippines. Is Tokyo confronting Beijing with more ‘aggressive diplomacy’?

The Philippine Foreign Affairs Department said on its website last Friday that Manila would purchase five patrol vessels from Japan, to be delivered between 2027 and 2028, and the purchase underscored the two countries’ “unwavering commitment to enhance our maritime safety capabilities for the benefit of our nation and the broader maritime community”.

Funded by an Official Development Aid loan from Japan International Cooperation Agency, the US$507 million deal is Tokyo’s largest to date with the Philippines’ maritime law enforcement agency.

Japan’s role as a security provider had been well in the making, as the country had been updating its security and defence posture for some time, Cogan says.

This, according to him, has been evident in Japan’s updated National Security Strategy and National Defence Strategy, referring to the 2022 blueprints.

“Japan can compete as a security partner, or it can watch Beijing’s tactics in the region escalate or have no choice but to be more accommodative,” Cogan said.

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Philippines races to upgrade its degrading military in the face of maritime disputes

While relations largely centred on economic cooperation, they expanded to include political cooperation and security, particularly in non-traditional security threats such as illicit drug trafficking, piracy, and terrorism.

Tomoo Kikuchi, a professor at the Graduate School of Asia-Pacific Studies in Japan’s Waseda University, said many countries in the region would like to see a more proactive commitment by Japan to regional security.

“Today’s regional geopolitical circumstances are not one in which Japan competes as a rising imperial power, but one in which it emerges as a defender of the rule-based order.”

“But Japan has neither the will nor