Japanese Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae meets with Vietnam’s President and Communist Party chief To Lam, in Hanoi, Vietnam, May. 2, 2026.
When Japanese Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae visited Vietnam in early May this year, she presented an “evolved version” of the Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP), a key plank in Japanese foreign policy, which is being called FOIP 3.0. The “Updated FOIP” specifies as priority areas “Building economic infrastructure for the age of AI and data,” “Co-creation of economic growth opportunities through public-private collaboration and rule sharing,” and “Enhancing cooperation in the field of security to ensure regional peace and stability,” each with its own items for concrete cooperation.
The FOIP was first proposed by the late Prime Minister Abe Shinzo in a speech in Nairobi in 2016. The keyword for FOIP 1.0 was “connectivity,” reflecting the fact that it was launched in the middle of a major shift in the power balance triggered by the rise of China.
International division has only deepened since, following the outbreak of the Russo-Ukrainian war, and with the rise of the Global South, international politics have become more complex still. It was in response to this that then Prime Minister Kishida Fumio proposed the New Plan for a FOIP, or FOIP 2.0, in 2023, along with the keyword “inclusiveness.”
