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Big in Japan – Scholz travels to Tokyo with six ministers

This format is a novelty: Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and several ministers from both sides met in Tokyo on Saturday for the first German-Japanese intergovernmental consultations.

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Big in Japan – Scholz travels to Tokyo with six ministers

This format is a novelty: Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and several ministers from both sides met in Tokyo on Saturday for the first German-Japanese intergovernmental consultations.

At the start of the talks, Kishida said that this would take the already close relationship between the two countries "to a new level". Scholz also spoke of a "sign of very good relations". "The government consultations will further advance our strategic cooperation, and they are a very important contribution to giving this close cooperation a new impetus, which we want to achieve together."

Scholz (SPD) traveled to Tokyo with six of his most important ministers. Robert Habeck (Vice Chancellor and Economy, Greens), Annalena Baerbock (Outside, Greens), Christian Lindner (Finance, FDP), Nancy Faeser (Inside, SPD), Boris Pistorius (Defense, SPD) and Volker Wissing (Transport, FDP).

Government consultations – i.e. meetings of several cabinet members from both sides – are nothing new for the federal government. In the past, for example, they already existed with China, India, Brazil, Israel and, until 2012, also with Russia. In this way, relationships with partners who are already close or strategically important are further deepened. For Japan, these are the first government consultations ever.

Germany is Japan's most important trading partner in Europe, and Japan is Germany's second largest trading partner in Asia after China. With the consultations, Scholz is also sending a signal that he is leaning less on China in Asia than on his predecessor Angela Merkel (CDU). The Chancellor's first visit to Asia in April last year was to Tokyo, not Beijing.

The talks will focus on the topic of economic security. The main focus is on expanding international cooperation in order to reduce dependencies on individual economic powers, for example when it comes to importing raw materials. Germany wants to learn lessons from its former dependence on Russia for gas, which could only be broken after the Russian invasion of Ukraine through a tour de force.

Japan, which also imports raw materials on a large scale, has enacted its own law on economic security, which the federal government regards as exemplary. A separate ministerial post was also created for the priority topic.

The meeting also deals with defense issues. The Bundeswehr has already sent a warship and fighter jets to the Pacific region to strengthen cooperation with friendly armed forces there. She wants to take part in exercises again this year.

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