Washington focuses on Tokyo to contain Beijing between duties, alliances and rearmament. Japan is strengthened in Indo-Pacific, while Europe loses geopolitical centrality.
On the horizon of Cho Cho San finally stands out the “fil of smoke”. The Lieutenant of Vascello Pinkerton of the work Puccianina (per century, Donald Trump) has noticed that if he wants to tame the Chinese dragon he must rely on Japan. Species that Europe has not come true: but it could be said of Habitude, imitating Emmanuel Macron, given that Germany does not have a great sympathy for the Rising Sun its first fearsome competitor in the exports because the Germans buy a lot from Japan (in 2024 a 5.8 percent increase) and the Japanese much less from the Germans (increase of 1.8 percent), but above all because with nine million cars are the Japanese. Car manufacturers in the world and to see this bothering a lot of bother in Berlin. It is, as often happens in Brussels, a serious mistake: the country of the Far East is probably the real trench against the “Chineseization” of the world. If the globalization goes into pieces and we proceed by areas of influence, this is the design that in Trump have suggested the economists of the Manhattan Institute, it is necessary to encircle Beijing in “his garden”.
Decrease the strength of the dollar, increase the duties to rebalance exports at the same time requires cultivating privileged partners in some areas. Stephen Miran, the head of the team behind the White House, who insists in saying: the duties will be temporary and not for everyone the same is warned of this. The reason lies in the fact that the big bang of globalized exchanges must be caused and then reconstruct an order of relationships on the basis of geostrategic alliances. So Arabia together with Russia to have the energy club and detach Vladimir Putin from China leaving it, if you can reserve; Iran with Caucasians to solve the chaos of Gaza and stabilize the Middle East; Finally, or indeed first of all, Tokyo and in the subordinate Seoul to put Asian superpower to the kennel. It is no coincidence that the White House announces possible rates up to 3 thousand per cent on the solar panels produced by Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, which are now the subcontractors of Beijing, is experimented in praise for the Japanese.
It happened a couple of weeks ago. Ryosei Akazawa, first councilor for foreign trade of the Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, a politician who understands a lot of economics, has guided a delegation to treat on the duties. And with great surprise at the technical table Trump presented himself personally by saying: “It is a great honor to be able to meet you”.
Washington initially hit Japan with a 24 percent duty, but is ready to withdraw it for a strategic reason: Tokyo is the sentinel of China as well as being the fourth commercial partner of the USA. In recent times, relationships have become even more relaxing. On the eastern chessboard Ishiba played in advance. As soon as the US president put his hand to the loot of the customs gun, he immediately summoned a summit with China and South Korea. To relaunch a commercial agreement disguised, however, by diplomatic understanding. In the three -way meeting there was talk of Ukraine with Tokyo who reiterated to the Chinese – and this is a signal on Taiwan – “that any attempt to unilaterally change the status quo with force will not be tolerated anywhere in the world” and confirmed that “the maintenance of peace and stability in the Korean peninsula is a shared responsibility of the three countries”.
So Beijing, if he does not want to have commercial hostility declared by the two Asian states, must keep at bay as Vladimir Putin as Kim Jong-un. It seems that Xi Jinping warned a certain sense of encirclement …
Japan therefore applies to stabilizer of one of the hot areas of the world, or rather of the area of maximum interest for the American administration: the Indo-Pacific. And this makes Europe retreat in Serie B. This explains the emphasis with which the EU last year – not Berlin, but since it is Ursula von der Leyen things coincide – announced that Germany had undermined from the third place of the G7 economies just Tokyo.
In reality it is a Fairy Morgana, a melodrama like Puccini’s aforementioned Madame Butterfly. An ephemeral result, since in two years there will be the overtaking of both by India and will be much more consistent. One more reason for Trump to not have too much interest for Brussels.
Giorgia Meloni understood this, that looking to the East is first of all contacting the Tokyo-Seoul block. Our Prime Minister, who returned from the mission to Washington, immediately said: now we are aiming for Est. But there for the union there is only Beijing, victim as is of a stale narration on Japan considered in stagnation and instead in a new phase of economic expansion.
The truth is that the statistics are made in dollars and while the euro has remained stable, the yen has depreciated; Therefore, translating the Japanese GDP into “Verdoni” is lower, but the German one is inflated from inflation (about 4,500 billion dollars) while the Japanese one is curbed by deflation (4,300 billion dollars). So much so that the exports of the Asian country go as one of their famous trains; Punctual and superveloci. Last year for four years – the source is Nikkei, Tokyo’s main scholarship index – the United States returned to being the first destination of Japanese export and December, for the first time in 20 years, North America has also become the first Korean export market. Those who lose ground is China that agitates a lot, send Boeing back to America and intensifies military provocations in the Chinese Sea.
But the Japanese continue to press the export accelerator: In the first three months of this year, 3.9 percent grew. And the forecasts for the increase in GDP – despite magazines to the slight reduction due to weak internal consumption – remain above 2.2 percent (the ECB estimated for the Eurozone a very modest 0.9 percent of growth), with the central bank of the Rising Sun led by Kauzo Ueda that raised the rates by bringing them to positive land (at 0.5 percent), because the net investments are very supported (we are more than 0.6 per cent. GDP). It is the sign that Tokyo is revitalizing his economy. To consolidate his premiership Shigeru Ishiba needs considerable results and here he is acting on three floors. The first is an agreement at any cost with Trump, to the point that it has already filed the inspection procedures of imported US cars and given education to eliminate the protective measures on the agri -food measures as much as possible. The resumption of dialogue for the steel steel steel dialogue also includes. Nippon Steel had offered $ 15 billion, but Joe Biden – therefore not the sovereignty Trump – had placed the veto for “national interest”. Now the draw is resumed and a common granddaughter-American investment will be reached. The second floor is that of armaments. Japan has launched a rearmament plan that increases military spending from 194 billion to 303 billion euros, also changing the profile of its armed forces: from simple self -defense to true military complex. The third profile is the construction of one of his “born” in the sense that he has strengthened military cooperation with Australia, New Zealand and South Korea and as a contact person of this “alliance” has opened his diplomatic delegation at NATO. Prime Minister Ishiba himself hoped for a security picture similar to the Atlantic pact in Asia.
The reason is that China has intensified its activity in the Sea of Japan and precisely in the Chinese Sea and on a quarterly cadence it makes massive aeronavenal exercises in front of the Japanese coasts.
This for Tokyo (who is very worried about a possible fall of Taiwan: he has launched 65 billion investments for microchips essential to the automotive and electronic industry) means living in perennial tension. To show the muscles in China, Japan has deployed its ships in the “Pacific Seller” exercise with the US Navy and the French one, just to emphasize European unity! The message of Michael Wosje, the US recipient: «The coordinated operations strengthen our alliances and discourage our opponents. We try to maintain an open and inclusive Indo-Pacific, free from any form of coercion ». Beijing is felt and Brussels as well.
