In Geopolitics Today - Monday, March 21st
Germany Agrees Major Natural Gas Deal with Qatar, Japan’s Poised for Greater Role in the Indian Ocean, Opportunities for Rapprochement between China and India
Germany Agrees Major Natural Gas Deal with Qatar
Germany and Qatar have agreed on a long-term energy partnership which will see Qatar supply Germany with liquified natural gas (LNG). This deal will help Europe’s largest economy diversify away from Russian natural gas by increasing shipments of LNG. The deal follows a meeting on between Qatar’s Minister of Energy Affairs and Germany’s Economic Minister, during which Germany confirmed that its current government is speeding up the development of two LNG receiving terminals.
Talks have been ongoing between Germany and Qatar over major LNG contracts for years with little concrete agreement, as Russia natural gas has proven a far cheaper source of energy for Germany. But following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Germany sees Qatar as a key player that could fill the void caused by the loss of Russian energy supplies. Almost 50 percent of Germany’s natural gas imports come from Russia, making the latter Germany’s largest gas supplier. Consequently, Berlin has insisted that the EU does not place sanctions on banks that service the country’s energy purchases from Russia in a bid to maintain stability in energy flows in the near-term. The newly-agreed deal comes comes after Germany concluded consultations with other leading exporters of natural gas — and its allies — Norway, Canada, and the United States.
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Japan’s Poised for Greater Role in the Indian Ocean
Japan is growing in its role as a key actor in the regional and global domains that will increasingly play an influential role across the entire seaboard of the Asian continent. As a major ally of the United States in the region which has a pressing national interest in containing the rapid growth of China, Tokyo is set to increase its naval footprint across the Indian Ocean with strong support of the US in these initiatives.
The Indian Ocean is increasingly at the centre of Japan’s broad range of accommodative interests in the maritime domain. Washington is spearheading a multinational effort led by the naval power of the United States of America, Japan, India, and Australia through the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue. For Tokyo, its Indian Ocean strategy is being driven by a pressing security dilemma which will bring about a number of strategic challenges as China’s naval power continues to grow. Yet a serious Japanese naval presence in the Indian Ocean will work to exacerbate this security dilemma as Beijing would likely respond to any military encroachment by Tokyo with an enhanced military presence of its own. As such, Japanese policymakers will have to tread carefully as they commit the country deeper into a US-led containment of China with naval power serving as the tip of the spear.
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Opportunities for Rapprochement between China and India
Despite intense efforts in recent years by the United States to incorporate India within its Indo-Pacific containment strategy of China, stark differences between the US and India remain, offering an opportunity for Beijing to resolve long-standing grievances with New Delhi. In an attempt to bridge differences, China has asked India to host Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi as part of his upcoming pan-South Asian diplomatic tour.
While India has so far been non-committal on the proposal, Beijing’s decision to propose such a visit is significant as it is the first such diplomatic outreach since the 2020 Galwan clashes between the two countries. Unease and distrust remains over the border dispute, yet channels of dialogue have remained open between New Delhi and Beijing. India and China completed a coordinated disengagement process around the sensitive Pangong Lake last year, and earlier this month the two countries held a fifteenth round of talks to resolve pending issues in the disputed eastern Ladakh region. Wang has admitted that the flare-up of violence on the shared border does not serve the interests of the two countries, thereby expressing a willingness to move past the border dispute. The recent exploration of a meeting in New Delhi is a continuation of a softening of language by China toward India, potentially signalling a willingness to pursue a thaw with India.
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