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Protecting a shared foundation, not a bloc
Japan’s Foreign Minister Motegi Toshimitsu attended the ASEAN-Japan Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Manila, the Philippines, July 22, 2026.
A decade has passed since Japan proposed the Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP) initiative. The “Updated FOIP,” announced in May 2026, carries on the original philosophy while adding a new focus on AI and data infrastructure, supply chains for energy and critical goods, public-private sector market co-creation, and security cooperation. It marks a shift from philosophy to building regional resilience in practice.
Asian growth has benefited from interdependence, but that same interdependence has created vulnerabilities. Disruptions to navigation in the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait in the Red Sea ripple outward to affect Japan and ASEAN through energy prices, ocean freight, insurance premiums, and component supplies. Economic security is not merely about preparing for great-power competition; it is about protecting the shared foundation of sea lanes, energy, resources, and digital infrastructure from threats including armed conflict, disasters, cyberattacks, and economic coercion.
