Japan, France to Compile Roadmap for Bilateral Ties; Focus on Joint Defense Drills, Semiconductor Supply Chains

By Hirotaka Kuriyama / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer

15:44 JST, December 2, 2023

DUBAI — The Japanese and French governments are working toward an agreement over a new roadmap for the two countries’ cooperative ties in the next five years.

In the new roadmap, the two governments will lay out how to strengthen cooperation regarding economic national security, with China in mind.

According to a draft of the new roadmap, the two governments will pay attention to China’s increasingly hegemonic moves.

The roadmap will stipulate the two countries’ opposition to attempts to change the status quo by force or other acts of coercion. To counter China’s coercive economic acts, the two governments will set up a new working team to discuss economic security.

Through the working team, the roadmap will emphasize an intention to make joint efforts to build supply chains of such products as semiconductors and important mineral resources.

In the field of national security, the two governments will employ a policy to enhance joint drills by the Self-Defense Forces and the French military, and implement space-related exercises.

The roadmap will also include a plan to accelerate discussions for signing a Reciprocal Access Agreement (RAA), which will make joint defense drills between Japan and France more easy to implement.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida was to hold talks with French President Emmanuel Macron in the United Arab Emirates on Saturday.