As talk of New Zealand purchasing a Japanese frigate continues, Australia-based academic Ryosuke Hanada looks at what is driving deepening security cooperation between the two countries, and how far such ties are likely to grow. Ryosuke Hanada is a PhD candidate at Macquarie University, working on international security, Japan’s foreign policy and the Indo-Pacific/Pacific Islands. He has been a research fellow at the Japan Institute of International Affairs (JIIA). In October 2025, he was a short-term visiting fellow at the Centre for Strategic Studies, Te Herenga Waka–Victoria University of Wellington.
