A Concert of Free Nations and the CPTPP

US President Donald Trump’s diplomacy has caused Western allies’ long-held concern about over-dependence on unipolar US hegemony to become reality. In particular, his demand for allies to bear significantly more of the defense burden, public remarks such as “I don’t need international law” and “the United States cannot continue to be the world’s policeman,” and inclination to recalibrate relationships with US allies have been taken with a sense of alarm as indicating a structural shift in the US foreign policy.

Behind these developments lie a shift in the US strategy vis-à-vis China in response to its rapid rise, a relative decline in the national power of the United States and the internal political divide, and fatigue over prolonged intervention in foreign affairs. Therefore, Trump’s diplomacy should be understood, not just as a personal deviation, but as a political manifestation of accumulated weariness in the United States over shouldering an excessive share of the international burden, and as reflecting the limits of sustainability of the US-dominated post-Cold War unipolar system itself.[1]

As the US-dominated unipolar hegemony declines in relative terms, China and Russia are seeking to change the status quo while international organizations are failing to function properly. All these developments together prompted a shift in the international order, ushering in the era of rule of force by superpowers. And there is no ruling out the possibility that the interests and intentions of non-super power countries may be disregarded in such a world.

It is quite possible that Chinese President Xi Jinping sees the cracks between the United States and its allies as a strategic opportunity to challenge the US-dominated unipolar system and drive a shift to China-centric world order in an increasingly multi-polarizing world. Likewise, Russian President Vladimir Putin might be seeing a strategic opportunity in the ongoing changes in—or decline of—the United States. Paradoxically, however, the changes in the United States have forced its allies to squarely face the reality that the United States does not necessarily always provide an unconditional security guarantee, accelerating their move toward greater security independence from the United States and resulting in a stronger-than-ever alliance among themselves, as seen in the enhancement of defense capabilities in Europe (EU’s strategic autonomy), increased defense spending in Japan, military buildup in Australia, and closer ties between Japan and Europe.

In this article, this new order, which is evolving against the backdrop of changing US diplomacy and with middle powers at its core, is called a concert of free nations.[2]

This concept is different from complete dependence on the unipolar hegemony of the United States or China-centric order. Instead, it refers to the formation of stable network-based order where a group of like-minded countries—those sharing certain fundamental principles, such as the principles of free trade, democracy, the rule of law, and the international order of the seas—cooperate in a multilayered and distributed manner to ensure military and economic security and facilitate technology development and transfer.

Currently, horizontal cooperation among those countries sharing the values of being a democracy, seafaring state, and advocate of the rule of law is being steadily strengthened.

Leading examples of such cooperation in the area of security include: the Quad among Japan, the United States, Australia, and India; the AUKUS among Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States; Japan-ROK security cooperation; the NATO-IP4 partnership; the Japan-Europe defense cooperation; and quasi-alliance relations based on reciprocal access agreements (RAAs) among or between individual countries. What is happening now is a shift away from the hub-and-spokes architecture composed of a set of bilateral alliances with the United States as the hub, which was established in the Cold War period, to a network-based security architecture in which allies connect directly with each other. It could be called an attempt to shift from vertical imperialistic order revolving around the United States as the unipolar superpower to horizontal distributed order in which the United States remains the core but other countries engage with each other more proactively on their own initiative.

In particular, Japan is moving to strengthen security cooperation with Australia, the Philippines, the NATO, India, the United Kingdom, and other European countries, shifting away from its traditional approach of putting the US-Japan alliance at the center of its security policy. Specific examples include: the joint development of a sixth-generation stealth fighter with the United Kingdom and Italy under the Global Combat Air Program (GCAP); RAAs with Australia, the United Kingdom, and the Philippines; joint exercises in the Indo-Pacific with warships deployed by various European countries such as the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and the Netherlands; and the revision of the weapon export rules. These moves are strategically rational because the presence of such multilayer networks would be able to maintain a degree of deterrence even if the United States turn further inward in the future.

Also, in responding to a Taiwan contingency, a broad collaboration among Japan, Australia, the Philippines, and European countries, including political support from the NATO, would provide more realistic and effective deterrence than the United States acting alone. From Beijing’s point of view, the easiest-to-handle and most desirable international environment would be a bipolar world, in which it has just one country to deal with and can easily use divide-and-conquer tactics or exploit changes in internal politics. Particularly, when Washington is the single most important negotiation counterpart and China can throw its economic power, market scale, and political maneuvering tactics solely at the United States, it would be extremely easy to make a game plan. Furthermore, partially delinking Europe, ASEAN, Japan, South Korea, or other allies from the United States would make it easier for China to wield strong influence through economic interdependence with respective countries.

The concert of free nations seeks to form a multilayered and distributed architecture to counter China. For instance, suppose that not only Taiwan and the United States but also Japan, Australia, India, Europe, and ASEAN countries collaborate, with each of them diversifying dependence on China in varying areas, which would make it more difficult for China to find a single target to put pressure on. In this sense, such long-lasting distributed collaboration among multiple free nations can more effectively enhance strategic deterrence against China in the event of a Taiwan contingency.

What is important here is that this is not about forming a cordon around China, but about building a multilayer network architecture (redundancies) that, as a whole, can maintain deterrence even if certain links or elements weaken in functionality. In other words, the intrinsic significance of this system lies in forming a resilient and flexible architecture so that the network as a whole will remain functional even if one country backs down due to political changes or economic pressures.

However, although the concert of free nations may seem perfect as a concept, the concept alone cannot sustain it. Even among free nations, national interest differs on various aspects, as seen in a gap in threat perception between Europe and Asia, varying degrees of reliance on the Chinese economy, the possibility of policy changes resulting from a change of government, differences in the defense burden borne, and varying degrees of interest in the Taiwan issue. Therefore, in order to make the concert of free nation truly effective, it is imperative to institutionalize a mechanism for coordinating interests in addition to sharing the concept. The following points are particularly important.

Needless to say, simply increasing defense spending does not ensure sufficiently effective deterrence. What is important is to clarify beforehand who bears which burden to what extent and institutionalize how the coalition, as a collective, divides functions among its members, such as in joint logistics operations, ammunition stockpiling, joint exercises, and rear-area support. For instance, in dealing with a Taiwan or Indo-Pacific contingency, there is no need for all member countries to have exactly the same capabilities. What is important is that they are prepared to organically cooperate with each other. A realistic expectation is to divide roles by function, for instance, with the United States providing capabilities for strategic nuclear deterrence, long-range strikes, space operations, and ISR (intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance); Japan providing rear-area support, sea and air defense capabilities, and logistic bases; Australia providing a rear-area base in the Southern Hemisphere, submarines, and resource supplies; the Philippines providing a geographical access base; European countries joining sanctions, deploying naval forces, and providing political support; and the NATO sharing information and providing cyber support. This is different from unilateral collective defense typically observed in the Cold War period. Instead, it is a concept close to distributed integrated deterrence.[3]

Of utmost importance here is to carry out logistics, supply, and ammunition stockpiling operations as joint actions. The ongoing Russia-Ukraine war has shown that contemporary war requires enormous amounts of ammunition, missiles, drones, and supply capabilities. The lesson learned is that no single country can sustain a drawn-out war. Thus, it is imperative that free nations establish a system for the shared production, joint stockpiling, and mutual supplies of weapons and ammunition. For instance, it is crucial to jointly produce missiles, standardize ammunition, share fuel reserves, accommodate the joint use of ports and airports, standardize repair and maintenance facilities, jointly implement cyber defense operations, and cooperate in counterintelligence activities.

Specifically, a series of recent developments—i.e., the Japan-Australia RAA, the Japan-UK-Italy joint development under GCAP, the AUKUS, and strengthened collaboration between the NATO and Indo-Pacific countries—should be understood as institutional preparation for increasing the interoperability of weapons to enhance efficiency.

The institutionalization of defense burden-sharing is not only about reducing dependence on the United States. What is more important is to create an architecture that does not collapse as a whole even if one country backs down. Democracies cannot avoid policy changes resulting from a change of government. It is therefore necessary to create an architecture that does not collapse just by the will of a specific leader (resilience to political changes) through various means, such as formalizing agreed-upon arrangements into a legally binding treaty, establishing a multilateral organization to implement such arrangements, setting up permanent administration-to-administration and military-to-military cooperation frameworks, and engaging in joint development. In other words, what is needed for the concert of free nations is not a centralized alliance but a redundant security network, which is formed by multiple interconnected countries and resilient to changes. A network with this architecture can sustain as a whole even in the event of a change of government or the rise of isolationism in one member country. This is a new deterrence architecture of the post-US hegemony era, which is different from the post-Cold War unipolar security model with the United States as the sole guarantor. In this sense, the institutionalization of defense burden-sharing is not just about sharing the cost of defense. Rather, it is nothing short of designing institutions for ensuring the sustainability of the concert of free nations.

At present, many free nations are closely linked with the Chinese economy. In addition to being the world’s largest manufacturing hub, China is also an enormous market, a supplier of critical minerals, and a core player in global supply chains for intermediate goods. As such, completely severing economic ties with China (decoupling) is prohibitively difficult, both from the realistic viewpoint and from the perspective economic rationality.

In fact, not only the United States but also Japan, Europe, South Korea, Taiwan, and ASEAN countries are closely interlinked with China through trade, investment, and production networks. For instance, Germany’s auto industry, South Korea’s semiconductor exports, Australia’s resource exports, Japan’s machine tools and chemical materials industries, and ASEAN’s manufacturing industries would not be economically viable without the Chinese market, at least in the short run.

However, it is also the case that in recent years, China has become increasingly inclined to use economic relations, not as purely commercial relations, but as tools to exert political influence. For instance, China’s restrictions on rare earth exports to Japan, economic sanctions against Australia, economic pressure on Lithuania, retaliation against South Korea over the deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system, and restrictions on imports from Taiwan are telling examples of how economic interdependence can turn into security vulnerabilities. This is a structure in which dependence on global economic networks can per se be used as a coercive tool (“weaponized interdependence”[4]).[5]

As such, what is required of free nations is not complete decoupling from the Chinese economy but strategic dependency management. More specifically, this is a concept that calls for reducing single-point dependency on China through various means, such as diversification of supply sources of critical materials, realignment of supply chains, production sharing among friendly nations (friendshoring), joint stockpiling of strategic materials, stricter technology control to prevent leakage, mutual assistance in the event of retaliation from China, and prior consultations among friendly nations on the red lines for sanctions against China.

What is of particular importance is the idea of controlling dependence to an acceptable level instead of completely replacing China. A realistic approach would be to pursue selective derisking, which is to significantly reduce dependence in the areas of cutting-edge advanced technologies and those directly linked to security, such as semiconductors, AI, quantum technology, telecommunications, space, and defense-related materials, while continuing to rely on China, to some extent, for consumer goods. Actually, recent policies of the United States, Europe, and Japan show that they are making a conceptual shift from decoupling to derisking. The intention is to recognize and properly manage strategic vulnerabilities instead of keeping out the Chinese economy.

Another important aspect is to enhance the mutual substitutability of free nations. It would be possible to reduce dependence on China without causing economic disruptions, if the free nations could create a mutually complementary supply chain among themselves, for instance, with Japan producing semiconductor materials, Taiwan manufacturing advanced semiconductors, the United States designing chips and offering AI technologies, the Netherlands manufacturing semiconductor exposure equipment, Australia supplying rare earths and minerals, Canada supplying energy and resources, and ASEAN countries serving as distributed production bases. Emerging international partnerships on guaranteed floor prices for certain rare earths can be cited as a specific example of recent developments toward that end. From China’s point of view, the easiest to deal with is a situation in which countries individually rely on the Chinese market. Thus, the formation of such a network for mutual economic assistance among the free nations would significantly reduce the effect of China’s economic coercion.

Accordingly, the management of dependency on China under the concert of free nations is not a mere economic policy. It should be understood as a long-term strategic vision that integrates economic, technology, and security domains and should be referred to as an economic version of NATO.[6]

Security alone cannot sustain an alliance. There needs to be an institutional foundation with accompanying economic benefits. Counted on as one of its cores is the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). The CPTPP is more than just a multilateral free trade agreement and can be defined as economic infrastructure for the concert of free nations encompassing a broad range of fields, including economic security, supply chain realignment, digital trade, investment protection, and technology cooperation.

Also, many of the CPTPP member countries are seafaring states connected with each other through the sea lines of communication (SLOC). Japan, Australia, Canada, Singapore, New Zealand, and Vietnam all rely on seaborne trade for national prosperity. In this sense, the CPTPP is not a mere customs agreement and has an aspect of being the institutionalization of the sphere of seafaring free nations. In historical context, this can be described as a 21st-century maritime collaboration framework, a more distributed and multilateral version of the maritime order under the hegemony of the British Empire or the post-war Pax Americana maritime order.

The Taiwan issue is no longer just a question of territories and sovereignty. Today, Taiwan is positioned at the core of the global semiconductor supply chain, most importantly, having the capabilities to manufacture advanced semiconductors crucial for AI, high-performance computing, and military electronic devices. In particular, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the world’s leading semiconductor OEM, is directly linked with the foundation of high-tech industries in the United States, Japan, and Europe. Today, as the conventional security concept is being expanded to include economic security, Taiwan’s world-leading miniaturization mass production technologies for semiconductors is becoming the core of the core interests of the free world. Therefore, a Taiwan contingency is now more than just a regional conflict in East Asia; it is an issue that would have a direct impact on the global technology and economic order.[7] From this point of view, Taiwan’s participation in the CPTPP is not just a question of market access but signifies its institutional integration into the technological sphere of free nations. The CPTPP is not a mere free trade agreement and can serve as an institutional foundation for supply chain realignment within the economic sphere of free nations. Taiwan’s participation in the CPTPP has strategic significance that goes beyond a mere trade issue. As demonstrated by the accession of the United Kingdom and the establishment of an accession working group for Costa Rica, the CPTPP has now evolved into a framework open to enlargement, meaning that historical conditions for the accession of Taiwan, which already meets the accession requirements, are beginning to be formed.

In the 21st century international order, technology is not just a driver of economic competitiveness but national security per se. Semiconductors, AI, quantum technology, space, telecommunications, and cyber capabilities are the foundation that determines military, economic, and information control capabilities. Therefore, it must not be forgotten that what is going on today is not mere trade friction but contains an aspect of competition to form technology order. The United States’ restrictions on semiconductor exports to China, coordinated arrangement with Japan and the Netherlands to control semiconductor manufacturing equipment exports, measures against Huawei in the deployment of 5G networks, strategic industry alliances for rare earths are typical examples of such move. From this point of view, the concert of free nation is not a mere military alliance but a process of forming the technological sphere of free nations.[8]

In addition to being a US ally, Japan can collaborate with Europe and has long-standing, mutually trusted relationships with ASEAN countries. It also holds a unique geopolitical position, as a seafaring state close to the Taiwan Strait and as a country having a deep understanding of China and being a major economic power itself. Accordingly, Japan can be a nodal state, serving as a nexus between Europe and Asia, between the United States and the ASEAN, and between Taiwan and Western countries. Indeed, the role Japan played in reviving the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) as the CPTPP after the US withdrawal is an achievement of Japan as a state that supports the network of free nations by means of institutions.

Japan is not a military superpower. However, it has unique strengths in developing institutions, coordinating rule-making, and building long-lasting trust. Going forward, what is required of Japan is to work to build infrastructure for the sphere of realistic free nations that combines economy, defense, technology, energy, supply chains, and diplomacy, rather than simply pursuing ideological diplomacy. Actually, Japan has been functioning as a state that support order by means of institutions, in reviving the TPP as the CPTPP and through a series of initiatives, including the Japan-EU Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA), the Free and Open Indo-Pacific Strategy (FOIP), infrastructure assistance, and diplomatic relations with ASEAN countries. This can be seen as a unique characteristic of Japan, which is quite different from a hegemon reliant solely on military power. For the purpose of this article, a country with such characteristic is referred to as an i institution-shaping state, taking into consideration existing discussions on rule-making and institution-building.

Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s diplomacy and security vision has a degree of compatibility with the concert of free nations discussed in this article, in that she gives priority to: 1) buildup of defense capabilities, 2) economic security, 3) collaboration among free nations, and 4) deterrence of China. In particular, her stance of placing importance on the QUAD, the stability of the cross-Strait situation, collaboration with the NATO, the protection of semiconductor, AI, and quantum technologies, and supply chain security has much in common with the trend toward horizontal collaboration among free nations.

Also, Takaichi’s diplomacy can be categorized as one that seeks to break away from double dependency, i.e.,security reliance on the United States and economic reliance on China. The perception that that Japan cannot have its say within the bloc of free nations unless it has the capability to play a proactive role is reflected, relatively strongly, in her diplomacy. This is clearly shown in the upgraded Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP), a vision introduced in her speech in Vietnam.[9]

In the era of post-unipolar US hegemony, international order cannot be maintained under a simple unipolar system and is rapidly shifting to network-based order, in which like-minded countries—those sharing the values of freedom, democracy, and the rule of law—connect with each other through multilayered economic, security, and technology supply chain networks. Against this backdrop, the CPTPP is more than just a free trade agreement, taking on critical significance as a core foundation for the institutionalization of economic order, supply chains, and strategic mutual dependency within the sphere of free nations.

Accordingly, Taiwan’s participation in the CPTPP should be defined, not simply as trade negotiations or the question of market access, but as a strategic touchstone for testing whether the concert of free nation can actually have institutional integration capabilities. The success or failure of Taiwan’s bid to accede the CPTPP has symbolic significance as a yardstick for measuring whether free nations can overcome political pressure from China and maintain the international order based on laws and rules.

In this context, Japan has the potential to play a crucial role as a nodal state, serving as a nexus between the United States and Asia, between Europe and the Indo-Pacific, and between economic security and the free trade system. In other words, Japan is being required to play a historic role as a strategic state, rather than being a mere regional state, capable of integrally mediating economic and regional security and institutional coordination, and forming an institutional core of networks of free nations.

In the post-Cold War world, priority was given to economic globalization, China’s inclusion into the international community, and market integration—all based on the optimistic assumption that market integration will lead to political convergence. However, this assumption has been shaken by the rise of China, the remilitarization of Russia, supply chain crises, and frequent use of economic coercion. As a result, the world is now entering an era where systems for economic security, management of technology competition, rebuilding of supply chains, focus on maritime order, defense of democracies, and institutional coordination need to be integrally designed. This means a shift from free trade supremacism to strategic liberalism. In addition to building a coordination mechanism for military security, a series of systems and mechanisms will need to be established under the concert of free nations, including a joint stock-piling mechanism for strategic materials, agreements for ensuring stable supply of semiconductors, a solidarity fund similar to the EU’s Anti-Coercion Instrument (ACI), digital standards within the CPTPP, agreements on contingency logistics support, and a consultation body for export controls of AI and quantum technologies.

Trump’s diplomacy, whether intentionally or otherwise, has served as a catalyst for such realignment of international order. Going forward, it is expected that Japan’s role as a mediator to promote the formation of new order will increasingly become more important.