Japan approved a plan Nov. 1 to send 200 Japan Ground Self-Defense Forces (JSDF) engineers to South Sudan in January, with an additional 300 to be sent later, as part of a five-year U.N. nation-building mission. The move into South Sudan may signal a renewed effort to gradually reintroduce JSDF operations into strategic foreign policy initiatives — in this case, energy security. In the few years before South Sudan's July 9 declaration of independence, China surpassed Japan as the largest buyer of Sudanese oil exports. South Sudan's independence, however, placed three-quarters of Sudan's known oil reserves in South Sudanese territory. Although the oil has not stopped flowing, its consistent supply is uncertain. Chinese-built pipelines direct South Sudan's crude to northern refineries and subsequently to the only viable export point, Port Sudan, which is located on the Sudanese coast.