The new security pact between the European Union (EU) and Japan indicates a growing role of the combined West in the Asia-Pacific region.

The racketeering at the state level involves powerful states creating threats against weaker states and offering defence pacts – which usually involve sales of expensive weapon systems – to the weaker states for protection from the same threats. Japan’s recent turn towards high defence spending, despite no explicit military threat from China, underscores this racketeering behaviour.

The new EU-Japan Security Pact

As the EU’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said, this security pact is the first of its nature that the EU has signed with an Asian Pacific country. Borrel further said that the pact was necessary because “we live in a very dangerous world”. Although Borrel did not mention China, it is quite obvious that the only source of real ‘danger’ in the Asia Pacific region is China, i.e., its massive rise as a global power directly threatening to unseat Western hegemony. The EU’s support also comes against the backdrop of its recent decision to jump on the US-driven bandwagon of a ‘trade war’ with China. In the first week of October, the EU imposed up to 45% tariffs on the import of electric........

© New Eastern Outlook