French President Emmanuel Macron showed this week that uncertain times call for unconventional tactics, as he embarked on rare trips to Tokyo and Seoul to mine untapped partnerships in the Indo-Pacific.
Macron is the fifth G7 leader to visit Japan since October, a sign of Tokyo’s growing global clout; he and Japanese Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae discussed Iran, critical minerals, AI, nuclear energy, and defence. The two countries’ foreign ministers met at a G7 summit last week and agreed to elevate the relationship to “new heights across a broad range of areas.” Macron last visited Japan in 2023.
Macron travels to Seoul today for a tête-à-tête with South Korean President Lee Jae Myung, with talks expected to focus on trade and advanced technologies. Macron, the first French president to visit South Korea in 11 years, invited Lee to attend the upcoming G7 leaders’ summit in Evian-les-Bains, France. Australia and India are also expected to attend the June summit.
More than diplomatic posturing or symbolism, Macron’s trip — a long haul from the Élysée Palace — is designed to embed France more deeply into the Indo-Pacific's economic and security architecture, building on a February visit to India and the signing last week of a visiting-forces agreement with the Philippines. Forty French businesses accompanied Macron to Japan and South Korea. As Business France, a government agency, noted in the lead-up to the trip, “in a context of restructuring of value chains and intensification of technological competition, Japan and South Korea are emerging as key markets for French businesses.”
France’s trade with Northeast Asia remains modest. In 2024, Japan–France goods trade hit US$19.1 billion. South Korea–France trade reached US$13.7 billion the same year.
Between a hawk and a hard place
Japan faces the same ‘hedging’ challenge as France, fending off an increasingly hawkish China and a fickle U.S. On Monday, Beijing banned a lawmaker from Takaichi’s Liberal Democratic Party from entering mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau, after the lawmaker made several trips to Taiwan. The move is the latest — and likely not the last — jab in a Japan–China spat that stretches back to November. The conflict has become a defining feature of Takaichi’s six-month tenure.
Japan–U.S. relations appear on the upswing. Takaichi’s recent meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington, D.C., veered into the outlandish — with Trump joking about Pearl Harbor — but Takaichi emerged “largely unscathed,” charming Trump and avoiding any disagreements over the conflict in Iran. A new poll by the newspaper Mainichi Shimbun found that 42 per cent of Japanese respondents rated the summit "favourably," compared to 22 per cent who rated the meeting "unfavourably."
Both Canada and Japan have expressed interest in aiding U.S. efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Tokyo said last month that, in the event of a ceasefire, Japanese vessels could aid in minesweeping. Canadian defence minister David McGuinty told CBC that, under the same conditions, Ottawa could contribute “vessels, de-mining expertise, intelligence, [and] cyber capacities.”
Despite a reluctance to engage militarily in the Middle East, Takaichi has prioritized Japanese defence and security. This month, Japan will send combat-capable troops to the Philippines for the ‘Balikatan’ exercises for the first time in 80 years. On Saturday, Japan’s defence minister, Shinjiro Koizumi, announced that Japan would inaugurate an office focused on the defence of its Pacific flank. The day before, Koizumi announced that the country’s Maritime Self-Defense Force successfully upgraded a destroyer, allowing the vessel to store and fire long-range Tomahawk missiles.
Sidhu in Seoul as submarine sets sail
Canadian international trade minister Maninder Sidhu leaves Seoul today — just missing Macron — after a four-day ‘Team Canada’ trade mission. More than 100 Canadian businesses and organizations joined Sidhu. Politico reported that up to 10 memoranda of understanding could be signed during the trip.
South Korea has more than reciprocated its interest in Canada, launching an all-hands-on-deck effort to secure a C$60-billion submarine contract from Ottawa.
On March 25, South Korea’s navy dispatched a KSS-III submarine — the model under consideration by Ottawa — to travel 14,000 kilometres to Victoria, B.C., where it will engage in joint exercises with the Royal Canadian Navy.
