Seeking a New Role: Japan’s Middle East Policy under Shinzo Abe

Abstract

With his frequent travels to the Middle East, more than all other Japanese leaders in the past, Shinzo Abe had been destined to ineluctably play a distinctive role in redefining his country’s foreign policy approach toward the region. Essentially, when Abe returned to power for a second time in late 2012, he succeeded to subsequently establish a relatively stable and long-term government which strived to critically reappraise some highly contentious elements of Japan’s internal and external policies. Reassessing Japan’s conventional low-profile orientation to the Middle East was particularly a major objective of the Abe government because the region had turned out to be closely and dubiously connected to some pivotal political and security reforms which Abe had long pursued to achieve domestically. By primarily doubling down Japan’s political engagement in different parts of the Middle East, therefore, Abe took advantage of what his country had capitalized in the region in more recent times to especially accelerate the accomplishment of some other political and security he favored ardently.