Japan Is Betting on a Second Shipping Corridor Beyond Hormuz

The second corridor

Japan is no longer assuming the Strait of Hormuz is the only artery it can rely on. Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi spent six days this month in Saudi Arabia and Oman, pursuing a strategy that English-language coverage has largely overlooked: he was building a backup route for Japanese oil. The destination was not just Hormuz, but the Bab el-Mandeb Strait on the other side of the Arabian Peninsula — and securing it is quickly becoming Tokyo’s defining energy-play.

The logic is stark. Japan still imports roughly 90 percent of its crude from the Middle East. If Hormuz were blocked, the alternative runs through the Red Sea via Bab el-Mandeb, but that corridor is itself under attack. Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi movement has been targeting vessels transiting near Saudi waters, turning what should be a fallback into another crisis zone. Japan’s diplomatic sprint was an attempt to stitch together a safety net before the next escalation.

The Hormuz game

In Muscat, Motegi held talks with Omani Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi. The meeting produced a deliberate framing: Oman stressed that the strait’s future must be decided in accordance with international law, a phrase Japan seized on as a diplomatic win. Behind the courtesy exchange sat a sharper disagreement. Iran has been pressing for passage fees from civilian ships navigating Hormuz — a demand Tokyo views as illegal under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea and a direct threat to free navigation.

Oman occupies a unique position here. It sits on the southern flank of Hormuz and shares a complicated maritime border with Iran, yet it has consistently avoided taking sides in the Gulf’s wider rivalry. Japan’s offer of support for Omani seawater desalination projects was not charity — it was leverage. The message to Muscat was simple: help us keep Hormuz open without extra costs, and Tokyo will invest in infrastructure that benefits Oman directly.

Motegi called the Omani response “promising,” a measured word that signals cautious optimism rather than a breakthrough. Iran is not at the table, and without Tehran’s cooperation, any navigation guarantee remains theoretical. What Japan gained was alignment with a neutral party who can quietly coordinate with both Gulf states and Iran — exactly the kind of channel Tokyo needs when Washington’s own talks with Tehran are stalling.

The Saudi pivot

Before Oman, Motegi stopped in Riyadh. The Saudi angle matters because Riyadh is the dominant power in the Gulf Arab world, and Japan wanted its backing for a coordinated navigation stance. Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan agreed in principle to the importance of free passage, but the more consequential part of the conversation was about infrastructure.

Japan indicated it would support the expansion of Saudi Arabia’s east-west pipeline — a project that can move crude from the eastern oil fields to the Red Sea coast, bypassing Hormuz entirely. If realized, this would be a structural shift in how Japan hedges its energy risk. Instead of routing nearly all Gulf oil through a single strait, Tokyo could diversify its supply chain across two geographic corridors. The pipeline expansion is not quick — it requires investment and time — but signaling intent now gives Japan diplomatic credit with Riyadh and a credible fallback option.

The Bab el-Mandeb gap

The Red Sea corridor is where Japan’s strategy faces its hardest test. The Houthi campaign against shipping has turned Bab el-Mandeb into a hazard zone, and Motegi met with Yemen’s internationally recognized presidential council chairman, Rashad al-Alimi, who is based in Saudi Arabia. The meeting produced promises of close cooperation on strait security, but it did not resolve the underlying problem: the de facto authority on the Yemeni side of Bab el-Mandeb is not the recognized government, it is the Houthis.

Al-Alimi’s council has limited reach inside Yemen, which means Tokyo’s assurances of cooperation may not translate into actual护航 or insurance guarantees for vessels. That gap is the weakness in Japan’s two-corridor strategy — it has been talking to the right capitals, but the actors who can disrupt or secure these waterways are not always the ones sitting across the table.

The prime minister question

Domestically, critics are asking why Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has not made a summer trip to the region. Government sources acknowledge that a personal visit — particularly one that could include a rare stop in Iran — would signal Japan’s seriousness in a way that ministerial delegations cannot. No current prime minister has visited Iran, and doing so would be unprecedented. The hesitation reflects the political risk: a trip to Tehran could dominate headlines, complicate relations with Gulf allies, and require a level of preparation that a summer schedule does not easily allow.

Still, the pressure is real. Japan’s energy security architecture was built around a stable Hormuz that no longer exists. The Bab el-Mandeb route is degraded. A pipeline alternative is years away. Without a leader-level visit to at least one of the key capitals, Japan’s strategy risks looking tactical rather than strategic — a series of ministerial visits rather than a coherent doctrine.

What happens next

The immediate next step is likely Japanese technical and financial support for Omani desalination and Saudi pipeline expansion, both of which can be framed as economic cooperation while serving energy-security goals. These are concrete, deliverable items that do not require hostage diplomacy or recognition deals.

The longer-term question is whether Japan can build a multilateral navigation guarantee for both straits involving Oman, Saudi Arabia, and possibly the UAE — a quiet coalition that keeps Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb open without directly confronting Iran. That is a harder ask, but it is the only arrangement that would genuinely de-risk Japan’s oil supply. Until then, Tokyo is walking a narrow diplomatic path between gratitude to its Gulf partners and the uncomfortable reality that the routes it depends on are less secure than they have been in decades.