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In deciding whether to award a massive Australian naval contract to Japan or to Germany, the Australian government must carefully weigh both competing strengths and strategic relationships. By Jason Koutsoukis.
Choosing Australia’s frigate suppliers
Defence officials are preparing to choose between a German or Japanese supplier for Australia’s $11 billion general purpose warship fleet – and it’s far more than a competition over ship design and cost.
The SEA 3000 procurement decision will send a geopolitical signal that could shape Australia’s defence industrial partnerships for a generation. Opting for the Mogami-class frigate would anchor Tokyo firmly within Australia’s defence industrial base. Picking Germany’s MEKO A-200 would reinforce a perception already gathering in Japan’s diplomatic circles that, despite Japan’s central role in the Quad diplomatic partnership and its alignment with Australia’s AUKUS objectives, Tokyo remains peripheral to Canberra’s most consequential strategic partnerships.
Such considerations have been sharpened by the rare circumnavigation of Australia this month by a Chinese naval contingent, as well as the upheaval of the Trump administration’s foreign policy overhaul.
At its core lies a question the government has yet to publicly confront: given that Japan describes Australia as its most important security partner after the United States, is that relationship reciprocated?
“This should be a no-brainer: the government should select the Japanese option,” Professor James Curran, who teaches political and diplomatic history at the University of Sydney, tells The Saturday Paper. “The advent of an unpredictable, untrustworthy and chaotic Trump administration has only underlined the need for Asian allies to do more amongst and between themselves as Washington upends and flips allied expectations of what it is and isn’t prepared to do.
“This is the step the Europeans have taken, and Australia should take a leaf from that strategic playbook.”
Awarding the frigate contract to Germany would be a déjà vu moment for the Japanese. In 2014, then prime minister Tony Abbott privately assured his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe that Australia intended to purchase Sōryū-class submarines from Japan to replace its ageing Collins-class fleet, a move aimed at deepening strategic ties between the two countries.
The commitment, made without a formal competitive process, sparked controversy within Defence and the then Labor opposition, leading to a public backlash. Under mounting pressure, Abbott’s government eventually reversed course and opened the program to an international tender, which Japan ultimately lost to France’s DCNS – now Naval Group – in 2016.
“Japanese fingers remain somewhat burnt,” says Professor Curran.
“This was yet another of Abbott’s ‘captain’s calls’ that proved to be the equivalent of a diplomatic blunderbuss, a proposal made to Tokyo without Abbott knowing which submarine would best suit Australia’s circumstances – both strategically and technically – and what was the best in terms of cost and value for money.”
The failure to secure Australia’s $50 billion contract to replace the Collins-class submarines was a deep disappointment to the Japanese government. Nearly a decade later, the offer of the upgraded Mogami-class frigate is backed by an unprecedented whole-of-government push, combining political, industrial and strategic weight.
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) has guaranteed delivery of the first Australian ship by 2029 – meeting a core requirement of the program – and is already building the next batch of 12 upgraded Mogamis for Japan’s defence force, from which Australia’s version would be drawn. MHI has also presented a plan to transition construction of up to eight frigates at the Henderson maritime precinct, a major naval and commercial shipbuilding hub located just south of Perth.
The new frigate features improvements – such as increased displacement, stealth and a full suite of vertical launching system cells – designed in response to Chinese naval capabilities. Japan’s decision to sell these systems to Australia also reflects a deepening strategic trust, likened to its relationship with the US.
In a speech on Monday to the eighth annual Japan Symposium at the University of Western Australia, Japan’s ambassador to Australia, Kazuhiro Suzuki, placed the SEA 3000 decision within a larger context, asking whether Australia is prepared to treat Japan not only as a strategic ally but also as a full industrial partner. He positioned Japanese defence industry expansion into Australia as not only viable but strategically desirable, especially in fields such as advanced manufacturing, defence technology and shipbuilding.
“Looking at the security relationship between Japan, Australia and the US, it resembles an isosceles triangle,” Suzuki said. “In order to cope with external pressure, the triangle must be an equilateral one. That’s basic physics, and the key to making it more of an equilateral triangle is a heightened level of defence industry cooperation between Japan and Australia.”
The message is that Japan is serious, unified and strategically invested in the outcome.
“There’s no question that this contract is extremely important to Japan, the Japanese government has had a full Team Japan approach to the bid,” Professor Gordon Flake, founding chief executive of the Perth USAsia Centre, says. “At the top levels, this is something that Japan regards as strategic, not just commercial. Because it’s a strategic relationship between Australia and Japan that they are trying to build, and this is one part of that broader strategy.
“After our treaty ally, the United States, Japan is arguably our most important security partner in the Indo–Pacific,” Flake says. “Japan is a manufacturing power, and increasingly a defence industry power. This is a country that we should want to work with.”
Nevertheless, Germany’s MEKO A-200 is the most widely exported frigate in its class in the world, with a strong track record across multiple navies, including those of South Africa, Algeria, Egypt and Poland.
Built by German shipbuilder thyssenkrupp Marine Systems (TKMS), the frigate is modular – meaning its weapons, sensors and combat systems are in discrete, self-contained units that can be added, removed or replaced independently of the core ship structure. It is also considered relatively affordable, meaning it would not only give Australia more room to acquire the full complement of 11 ships but also offers greater potential for a swift build transition to Australian shipyards, aligning with the Albanese government’s hybrid offshore-onshore production model.
The German design also features a command-and-control system – used to detect, track, assess and respond to threats – that is compatible with command-and-control systems already used by the Royal Australian Navy.
While the A-200 is a mature platform, critics point to its smaller size and lighter weapon load compared with the Japanese Mogami-class. And unlike Japan, Germany has no recent track record of delivering surface combatants on an AUKUS or Quad-aligned industrial framework.
Still, for Defence officials seeking low-risk, known capability and a clear path to integration, the MEKO A-200 remains a credible and politically neutral option – just one with fewer strategic dividends.
One senior Defence Department official tells The Saturday Paper the Japanese- and German-designed frigates both have compelling strengths.
“The upgraded Mogami-class is an excellent design – not just excellent, it’s a better ship – but it’s not a proven design that’s already in the water, so that’s an issue because of problems we have run into with concept designs in the recent past. The German design is a proven design that is already in the water, and that is a strength,” the official says.
“On the other hand, Japan is a very, very important strategic partner here in our region. That’s a plus for Japan. Germany, simply according to geography, is not. That’s a weakness for them. But, and I cannot stress this enough, the really serious evaluation will not start until the second half of the year.”
Last month Defence Minister Richard Marles said the Australian government wanted to see a final decision made this year: “We want to see the quickest transition from an overseas build to an Australian build at Henderson in Western Australia. Our No. 1 objective here is speed into service.”
According to Flake, while defence acquisitions involve a range of factors, and such decisions are evaluated at arms-length from the government, it’s also entirely appropriate for strategic considerations to play a role.
“The question is, then, do you factor into that the broader question of the trajectory of relations? I actually think that’s appropriate and, more importantly, I think it’s appropriate to consider what this will lead to for Australia and Japan in the Indo–Pacific,” says Flake.
Or, as one person close to the Japanese bid told The Saturday Paper: “Let me put it this way: If Japan doesn’t get this, it’s simply sub-optimal. The Japanese are pragmatic and the Japanese are elegant, and they are also quiet about these things, and if they lose, they will say, ‘This is unfortunate and we are disappointed because we had high hopes’, and everyone in Australia will read that as a sign that they are okay about not winning the bid. But that will not be the case behind the scenes.”
This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on March 29, 2025 as "Forgive and frigate".
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