Japan and Kazakhstan: A Partnership for an Age of Energy Insecurity and Nuclear Risk

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TOKYO, Japan, Could also 25 2026 (IPS) – The connection between Japan and Kazakhstan is principally described by manner of diplomacy, funding and regional cooperation. However at a time of rising geopolitical uncertainty, it deserves to be understood in broader terms: as a partnership linking cities, resources, abilities and peace.

Kazakhstan’s capital, Astana, affords a highly effective symbol of that evolving relationship. Constructed on the broad steppes of Central Asia, the metropolis is principally described as a futuristic capital, with glass-and-steel towers, tall boulevards and monumental structure reflecting the aspirations of a young squawk seeking to stipulate its space in the twenty first century.

For Japan, nonetheless, Astana is no longer merely capital. Its grasp conception changed into once shaped in fraction by the unhurried Kisho Kurokawa, no doubt one of Japan’s main architects, who sought to combine Kazakhstan’s nomadic heritage, harsh natural atmosphere and squawk-constructing ambitions with forward-taking a look metropolis make. That historical connection is now taking on unique which manner as Japan and Kazakhstan make larger cooperation in tidy cities, green applied sciences, energy safety and nuclear disarmament.

On Could also 22, Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev met Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike in Astana to focus on cooperation in tidy metropolis pattern, digital applied sciences, finance, education, emergency response and sustainable metropolis administration. Tokyo, no doubt one of the most enviornment’s most densely populated metropolitan areas, has developed evolved programs in public safety, catastrophe preparedness, transportation and administrative services and products. For in an instant rising Astana, Tokyo’s abilities affords a helpful reference point.

Here’s no longer merely technical cooperation. It aspects to a singular originate of metropolis diplomacy, sooner or later of which cities work correct now collectively to handle shared challenges such as climate alternate, catastrophe possibility, energy effectivity, digital governance and sustainable increase. In an age when many of the enviornment’s most urgent problems are skilled first and most correct now in cities, such cooperation issues.

Yet the deepening Japan-Kazakhstan relationship can no longer be explained by metropolis cooperation alone. Within the again of it lies a more urgent geopolitical actuality: instability in the Center East and the resulting terror over energy safety.

Japan has lengthy depended heavily on the Center East for rude oil. Tensions around Iran and the Strait of Hormuz pose dangers that correct now fill an affect on Japan’s financial system and every day lifestyles. For Tokyo, diversifying energy sources, severe mineral affords and transport routes is never any longer merely a matter of alternate policy. It has change into a central element of financial safety.

In this context, Kazakhstan has gained renewed significance. The nation is prosperous in oil, natural gasoline, uranium and severe minerals, whereas also serving as a logistical hub linking Central Asia and Europe. At the “Central Asia plus Japan” summit held in Tokyo in December 2025, strengthening severe mineral provide chains and supporting the Trans-Caspian Hall — a route connecting Central Asia and Europe with out passing thru Russia — had been placed on the middle of regional cooperation.

For Japan, uncommon earths, lithium and diversified severe minerals are crucial to batteries, electronics, renewable energy programs and next-abilities industries. Diversifying both sources of provide and transport routes is therefore an energy policy, an industrial policy and a security policy directly. Astana is more and more changing into a needed platform for Japan’s engagement with Central Asia.

The common sense of this partnership is no longer restricted to resources. It also extends to abilities and sustainability. Within the future of Koike’s visit, a Kazakhstan-Japan industrial occasion brought collectively Eastern companies that specialise in decarbonization, renewable energy, drone applied sciences and carbon credit score solutions. On the Kazakh facet, hobby in Eastern abilities has been rising in renewable energy, man made intelligence and digital transformation.

Metropolis pattern, environmental applied sciences, resource cooperation and logistics infrastructure are no longer separate policy fields. They’re changing into fraction of a wider strategic framework sooner or later of which Japan and Kazakhstan can complement every diversified: one with evolved abilities and metropolis administration abilities, the diversified with resources, geography and a young capital silent in the design of defining its future.

However there is a deeper layer to this relationship that must no longer be overpassed: the memory of nuclear suffering.

Japan is the handiest nation to fill suffered atomic bombings in battle, in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Kazakhstan continued severe radiation distress from repeated Soviet nuclear tests on the Semipalatinsk take a look at role, the build greater than 450 nuclear tests had been conducted between 1949 and 1989, leaving lengthy-length of time penalties for native communities and public well being.

In 1991, Kazakhstan closed the Semipalatinsk take a look at role. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, it gave up no doubt one of the most enviornment’s splendid nuclear arsenals ideal on its territory and selected the path of a non-nuclear-weapon squawk. That resolution has change into a defining characteristic of Kazakhstan’s foreign policy.

Japan and Kazakhstan both know, no longer as an summary matter of safety thought but thru historical abilities, what nuclear weapons can inflict on human beings, communities, the atmosphere and future generations. This shared memory affords the bilateral relationship a decided ethical foundation.

That memory has also shaped sustained cooperation among governments, civil society and global organizations. INPS Japan has reported on nuclear disarmament-associated conferences and occasions engaging Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the World Committee of the Red Depraved, the Center for World Security and Coverage, the World Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons and Soka Gakkai World.

One significant instance changed into once the anti-nuclear exhibition “The full lot You Admire — For a World Free From Nuclear Weapons,” collectively organized in Astana by SGI, ICAN and Kazakhstan’s Center for World Security and Coverage. Held in September 2022 at Keruen Mall in central Astana, the exhibition frail photography, illustrations and graphics to educate formative years about the dangers of nuclear weapons, from the atomic bombing of Hiroshima to the continuing humanitarian penalties of nuclear hands.

A documentary produced by CISP, a Kazakh NGO, with toughen from SGI.

Such initiatives are crucial on fable of nuclear disarmament can no longer be left to diplomats alone. If the memory of Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Semipalatinsk is to shape policy, it must even be handed to younger generations. Exhibitions, survivor testimony, documentaries and civil society campaigns abet make particular that that nuclear weapons are mentioned no longer handiest as devices of deterrence, but also as weapons with catastrophic human, environmental and intergenerational penalties.

In 2023, a regional conference in Astana addressed the humanitarian affect of nuclear weapons, the Central Asian Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone, testimony from nuclear take a look at victims, and sufferer support and environmental remediation below the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Unlike debates that frame nuclear weapons basically by manner of deterrence or national region, such boards space affected folks, their households, communities and atmosphere on the middle.

A documentary on Kazakhstan’s nuclear take a look at victims, I Prefer to Live On: The Untold Tales of the Polygon, produced by Kazakhstan’s CISP with toughen from SGI, has also helped affirm the testimonies of second- and third-abilities victims in the Semey squawk to global audiences. Along with workshops engaging the United Countries Dwelling of job for Disarmament Affairs and discussions on cooperation among nuclear-weapon-free zones, these efforts abet the humanitarian affect of nuclear weapons on the middle of global disarmament debates.

In 2025, President Tokayev delivered a lecture on the United Countries College in Tokyo, warning that nuclear dangers had been again on the upward push. Referring to Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Semipalatinsk, he stressed that Japan and Kazakhstan are both worldwide locations that realize the catastrophic penalties of nuclear weapons.

That message must silent be taken critically. Japan and Kazakhstan attain no longer maintain the same safety positions. Japan continues to rely on the United States’ nuclear deterrence as fraction of its safety policy, whereas Kazakhstan, having renounced nuclear weapons, is a member of the Central Asian Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone. Yet both worldwide locations part general ground in seeking to transform the memory of nuclear hurt into action for global peace.

Here’s why perfect cooperation in tidy cities, green applied sciences, energy transition, severe minerals and the Trans-Caspian Hall carries which manner beyond usual transactions. It rests on a wider foundation: mutual belief, shared vulnerability and a general responsibility to abet execute a safer and more sustainable future.

At a time when crises in the Center East are shaking the worldwide energy teach and nuclear dangers are again keen to the forefront of global politics, the Japan-Kazakhstan relationship is never any longer merely a fable of friendship. It reflects Japan’s fill choices in an age of uncertainty: whether to manner Central Asia handiest as a source of resources, or as a squawk with which it might perhaps maybe most likely well well well execute a broader partnership linking cities, abilities, energy safety and peace.

Astana, the futuristic capital shaped in fraction by a Eastern architect, has change into greater than a symbol of Kazakhstan’s ambitions. It is also a reminder that the manner forward for global cooperation will rely no longer handiest on markets and infrastructure, but on memory, responsibility and the courage to consider safety beyond fear.

This article is dropped at you by INPS Japan in collaboration with Soka Gakkai World in consultative region with UN ECOSOC.

IPS UN Bureau