As Brussels rethinks economic security, Japan’s harder strategic turn shows that autonomy means building options, not pretending Europe can stand alone.
Prime minister Sanae Takaichi’s election win is a warning for Europe that a lower-trust world rewards optionality — not dependence.
It signals a shift to a harder-edged calculus: stop waiting for stability and plan for uncertainty.
Europeans have spent years debating “strategic autonomy.” We have argued about defence spending, industrial policy, and how far Europe should distance itself from — or remain anchored to — the United States. Recent events made it practical: can Europe absorb pressure without scrambling?
The recent tariff deal between Brussels and Washington shows that even between close allies, economic relations can become explicitly transactional. Leverage is used more readily. Trust, once assumed, must now be managed.
That does not call the transatlantic alliance into question. But it does confirm what many in Europe have been slow to accept: that geopolitics now colours every significant decision. Strategic autonomy, in that light, is about having enough weight — and enough partners — to avoid being cornered.
Europe is already trying to preserve that margin for manoeuvre: by strengthening its industrial base, sharpening its economic security toolkit, and deepening ties beyond the United States.
Among those partners, Japan stands out.
Why Japan?
The EU’s Indo-Pacific strategy already says the region matters for trade, technology, and security. It is also where the rules that underpin global stability are increasingly tested.
Japan has been forced to adapt earlier and more visibly to the pressures of multipolarity.
Faced with Chinese rivalry, a tougher military balance and economic coercion, Tokyo has learnt to pair openness with insurance. Europe should recognise that Japan has already confronted dilemmas we are only now fully acknowledging: how to stay open without becoming exposed, and how to deepen security ties without trading away a rules-based identity.
The groundwork is already laid with Japan. The economic partnership agreement has been in force since 2019. The Digital Partnership was launched in 2022. The Security and Defence Partnership followed in 2024. And the Strategic Partnership Agreement in 2025.
Few relationships come with such a ready-made set of instruments. The shortfall is now in implementation.
Consider economic security. Regulation written in Brussels will not, by itself, ease a chokepoint in East Asia. That requires partners with industrial weight and shared interest to make resilience a collective project — rather than a competitive one.
The same logic extends to technology.
Semiconductors, AI standards, and data flows are now instruments of power. The digital partnership with Japan is one of the few channels where Europe can shape rules with a trusted partner before others do.
This is where the broader strategic context matters. Japan anchors some of Asia’s most significant trade architecture, covering close to a third of global GDP. That integration is advancing regardless of whether Europe chooses to engage with it seriously.
Reducing vulnerability to chokepoints will require more than statements of intent. Starting with structured supply-chain mapping alongside coordinated export control approaches and ensuring that resilience efforts reinforce — rather than fragment — open markets among trusted partners.
The same logic applies to security. Japan is expanding its capabilities, deepening partnerships beyond the United States, and increasing defence spending.
Tokyo embedded itself in multilateral arrangements reflecting a more assertive posture. Europe has no business aspiring to be a Pacific military power, nor should it. But it should recognise that European security and Indo-Pacific stability are increasingly interconnected.
Strategic autonomy is not achieved by pulling away from partners, nor conjured through speeches about sovereignty.
It is built, quietly, by accumulating choices so that no single actor can dictate terms. Japan offers Europe a practical Indo-Pacific anchor. Treating that partnership as peripheral would be a mistake.
Europe does not need a dramatic pivot, but consistent, operational habits of cooperation that turn alignment into leverage.