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.
Japan is a U.S. ally, yet it is not pressing ASEAN to choose between Washington and Beijing. Japan’s role is to strengthen each country’s capacity to make its own decisions and expand the alternatives available to it in times of crisis. Japanese companies have invested in ASEAN for decades, building factories and logistics networks and developing technology and human resources. Japan and ASEAN share the same supply networks and maritime routes, making ASEAN’s resilience inseparable from Japan’s own.
If the FOIP and the ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific (AOIP) are pursued independently, AOIP priorities risk going underimplemented, while the FOIP risks being seen as little more than a vehicle for Japanese interests. The AOIP defines ASEAN priorities; the FOIP links funding, technology, and enterprise to drive implementation. This allows ASEAN to choose the cooperation projects itself and ensure that they are implemented in line with regional needs.
Concrete cooperation could take three forms. The first is joint preservation of maritime routes. The Strait of Hormuz, the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, and the Malacca and Singapore Straits constitute a single maritime logistics network. Japan, ASEAN, China, and South Korea, despite their different political positions, share a common interest in safe and stable navigation. What this requires, however, is not “joint defense” by extra-regional powers, but navigation safety, anti-piracy, search and rescue, and accident and disaster response that respect the sovereignty and initiative of coastal states.
The model here is the Malacca Strait patrols conducted by the coastal states of Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand. Japan has bolstered navigational safety through hydrographic surveying, navigation aids, maritime security information-sharing, and training. Such coastal-state-led, user-state-supported mechanisms can be extended to port and submarine cable protection, information-sharing on alternative routes, and rescue cooperation, with user countries including China participating as well.
The second is critical minerals supply chains. In 2026, Japan successfully conducted a test extraction of rare earth mud from 6,000 meters depth in its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) around Minamitorishima Island. Though still at the demonstration stage, it marks a step toward supply diversification. Japan should advance collaboration with ASEAN on separation and purification, environmental monitoring, processing, magnet and motor production, and waste-product recovery. Linking future Minamitorishima output with ASEAN mineral and processing capabilities would reduce excessive dependence on single sources.
Third is energy mutual aid. In 2025, ASEAN renewed the ASEAN Petroleum Security Agreement (APSA), which governs cooperation on emergency oil supply. Similar arrangements will also be needed for natural gas disruptions. Japan and ASEAN should consider joint stockpiling of crude oil and petroleum products, shared use of regional storage, emergency mutual accommodation, and LNG-vessel scheduling adjustments. Crisis response can be accelerated by integrating Japan’s stockpiling system with ASEAN’s emergency mechanisms.
The moment is right to expand cooperation with countries such as Australia, South Korea, India, and the EU, building outward from the Japan-ASEAN relationship. But this does not require creating an entirely new bloc. Maritime routes should involve user countries like China, critical minerals should draw in reliable supply-chain partners, and energy should engage both consumer countries and oil- and gas-producing states. A functional approach to open collaboration is realistic: membership varies by issue, with no single grouping required for all.
There is no need to build from scratch. In addition to the ASEAN-Japan Comprehensive Strategic Partnership and ASEAN Plus 3, the supply-chain agreement of the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF), in which seven ASEAN countries participate, can serve the FOIP as well. The agreement enables signatories to share risks of critical-mineral supply disruptions, develop alternative sourcing, and coordinate emergency response procedures, with lessons that can inform broader ASEAN-wide cooperation under the AOIP.
What the Indo-Pacific needs is not exclusive blocs but a system of collective stability across sea lanes, resources, and energy. The updated FOIP can take root only by working in tandem with the AOIP and broadening ASEAN options. What Japan and ASEAN should aim for is “collective self-reliance”: the resilience to withstand pressure from any major power or supply disruptions from outside the region.
