The Strait of Hormuz has been subject to a de facto blockade in the wake of the American and Israeli attacks on Iran, keeping crude oil tankers from navigating the strait. More than 90 percent of Japanese crude oil imports come from the Middle East, so the soaring gasoline prices have had an immediate impact on daily living in Japan.

The Middle East region accounted for 95.9 percent of Japan’s crude oil imports in the 2024 fiscal year. The United Arab Emirates was the leading supplier (representing 43.6 percent of Japan’s total imports from the region), followed by Saudi Arabia (40.1 percent), Kuwait (6.4 percent), and Qatar (4.1 percent), with the top two countries supplying more than 80 percent of Japan’s crude oil needs, and the top four for more than 90 percent.

On March 9, 2026, the Japanese news agency Kyodo News reported that “[On this day, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI)] announced that it has instructed ten domestic storage bases to make preparations to release oil from the state stockpiles.”

At a press conference on March 3, Japanese Defense Minister Koizumi Shinjiro responded to a reporter’s question about the possibility of recognizing the current situation as a “survival-threatening situation” if fuel prices soar due to the de facto blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and seriously affect the lives of Japanese people, saying that “We have not deemed that the current situation constitutes a survival-threatening situation.”

What is a “survival-threatening situation”? For Japan to be able to exercise its right of collective self-defense under international law only in “specific situations,” it organized such “specific situations” and dubbed them “survival-threatening situations,” regulated through a revision of the Armed Attack Situation Act in 2015. This law defines a survival-threatening situation as “a situation in which an armed attack against a foreign country that has a close relationship with Japan occurs, and as a result, threatens Japan’s survival and poses a clear danger of fundamentally overturning people’s right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness” (Article 2, Item 4).

When it comes to what situations constitute survival-threatening situations, from the 2015 revision of the act to the present, Japan’s position as of late 2025 was quite vague: “The government will make a judgment based on all information and consider the specific circumstances of each situation.”

However, during the Diet deliberations that preceded the revision, then Prime Minister Abe Shinzo repeatedly cited “a blockade by placing mines in the Strait of Hormuz” as a concrete example that could be recognized a survival-threatening situation. Abe elaborated: “If mines are placed in the Strait of Hormuz, Japan runs the risk of a serious energy crisis. […] Survival-threatening situations assume armed attacks on other countries that have a close relationship with Japan, but to take an example, delayed supply of oil and other energy sources will not only have an economic impact but also cause interruptions to lifelines due to shortages of daily necessities and electricity. […] There is a need to comprehensively evaluate whether or not a situation will have a life-or-death impact on the lives of Japanese people, meaning serious or considerable effects on whether people live or die, so that, depending on the circumstances, it may be regarded as a survival-threatening situation.”

Abe went on to say that even if a mine blockade of the Strait of Hormuz was recognized as a survival-threatening situation, the only available action for the Self-Defense Forces to deal with the situation would be minesweeping, an action that is also limited to cases of “de facto ceasefire agreements.”

Minesweeping activities in the event of an armed conflict are considered to constitute a use of force under international law. If the Japanese government recognizes a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz by naval mines as a survival-threatening situation and orders defensive operations, force may be used “to the extent considered reasonably necessary in accordance with the situation” (Article 3, Paragraph 4 of the Armed Attack Situation Act; Article 88, Paragraph 2 of the Self-Defense Forces Act). That means Japan could dispatch its Maritime Self-Defense Force to the Strait of Hormuz to conduct minesweeping activities as a way to ensure the safety of ships navigating the strait.

If a survival-threatening situation is recognized, “efforts must be made [by the Japanese government] to promptly terminate the situation” (Article 3, Paragraph 4 of the Armed Attack Situation Act). Under the Act, if the Japanese government deems a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz by naval mines to be a survival-threatening situation, it could promptly take any of a broad range of measures to terminate the situation, including but not limited to minesweeping activities, even if combat was still ongoing in the strait.