Description
Connectivity is a central pillar of Japan’s Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP) vision that aims to connect and vitalize Asia and Africa. It has also emerged as a buzzword in global affairs. However, our understanding of the various forms of connectivity and how they converge and diverge from each other over space and time remains limited. The concept of strategic connectivity – an important aspect of this understanding –has gained traction in recent years as it captures the often-sensitive geopolitical ambitions that underlie connectivity initiatives. Given the historic developments in Japan’s policy frameworks concerning both development assistance and security policy and the reoccurring theme of strategic connectivity over the past decade, a number of questions regarding how such initiatives are put into practice persist. This paper considers Japan’s use of official security assistance (OSA) and multilayered connectivity in the Indo-Pacific to address how can we understand the strategic aspect of the different connectivities. Combining elements of hard and soft connectivity, multi-layered connectivity concerns not only the construction of “quality infrastructure” such as roads, bridges, railways and Special Economic Zones, but also human, knowledge, and digital connectivity. It can be understood as the culmination of various connectivity initiatives, whether they be structural or non-structural, short-term or long-term, people-based or technology-based. OSA promotes local capacity building through the provision of non-lethal defense equipment for “like-minded” countries in an effort to develop and reinforce their security capacities and deterrence, reinforcing defense connectivity. In its analysis, the paper considers developments from both flagship and nascent connectivity projects in the Indo-Pacific and empirical focus is directed to Southeast Asia – a core region for Japan’s ODA historically and for FOIP and OSA contemporarily – where both multi-layered connectivity projects and OSA scheme projects are underway.
