Japan sheds constraints on its military

Japan has laid the foundation for a new set of defence and security policies for the years to come and in the process, it has taken a giant step to shed the self-imposed post-World War II constraints on its military.

Last week, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s government revised three key documents after months of debate, putting out a tough new approach to the region, where it has to confront the North Korean missile threat, China’s increased muscle-flexing, and the fallout of the Ukraine war. The developments in Europe have acted as a catalyst of sorts in pushing the Japanese decision-making. “Ukraine today may be East Asia tomorrow,” Kishida had said in June.

The new National Security Strategy (NSS) says that Japan “is facing the most severe and complex security environment since the end of World War II.” And in an oblique reference to China and Taiwan, it also noted that there was growing pressure “by those seeking to unilaterally change the status quo by force.”

A major driver of this change is the increasing worry that China could attempt to reunify Taiwan by force in the coming decade. The NSS says that “China has intensified coercive activities around Taiwan, and concerns about peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait are rapidly increasing….” In August this year, in a bid to coerce Taiwan, five Chinese ballistic missiles landed in the Japanese EEZ.

The NSS does not quite yet designate China as a “threat”; its chosen designation is “the greatest strategic challenge that Japan has ever faced.”

Perhaps, the most dramatic shift is Tokyo’s decision to create a counter-strike capability based on long-range missiles that can take out enemy bases and command and control nodes. Till now, Japan’s posture was wholly defensive, reliant on anti-ballistic missile capability to shoot down missile targeting Japanese facilities.

As part of this new strategy, Japan will enhance the range of its own Type 12 missiles and buy US-made Tomahawk missiles with a range of 1,600 km or so over the next five years. These plans are outlined in the other two documents — the National Defence Strategy (NDS), which lays out the defence policy, and the Defence Program, which provides an outline of the procurement and spending plans.

Another area which will see a dramatic expansion is the Japanese cyberwar capability. This will involve adding thousands of more cyber specialists to the Self-Defence Forces (SDF) core, raising the total to about 20,000. The documents also notes that the SDF will create a permanent joint command to oversee its ground, maritime and air components.

The big issue is paying for these changes. The government has made it clear that it is no longer bound by the traditional restriction of keeping its defence spending at one per cent of the GDP. Now, Japanese officials have been asked to obtain a budget equal to two per cent of the GDP by 2027. Kishida has ordered the five-year defence plan to be hiked by 60 per cent to some $315 billion. Not only would this bring Japan in line with the NATO defence spending standard, but also enable Japan to get ahead of India and become the third largest defence spender in the world after the US and China.

Kishida’s suggestion that the additional funding be raised through tax increases hasn’t gone down well even within the government and the ruling party. One proposal being discussed is to divert the special income tax after the earthquake and tsunami in March 2011, the second is a corporate tax increase and the third a cigarette tax.

The United States is the principal security provider to Japan. So, what Tokyo is doing is to signal to the US and its allies that instead of a one-way security guarantee, it is now seeking a two-way joint defence strategy. Around 54,000 US servicemen are stationed in Japan and the home port of the 7th Fleet is Yokosuka, just south of Tokyo.

Not surprisingly, the US has hailed Japan’s step as being “bold and historic”. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said that “Japan’s new documents reshape the ability of our alliance to promote peace and protect the rules-based order in the Indo-Pacific region and around the world.” Tighter cooperation with the US is an important theme of the documents. They see Japan and the US operating together in both defensive and offensive actions.

China had pre-emptively made known its unhappiness. Foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin had said that “Hyping up the ‘China threat’ to find an excuse for its military buildup is bound to fail.”

China is Japan’s largest trading partner and many Japanese companies depend on China for their profits. The previous NSS of 2013 had spoken of the importance of working “to build and strengthen mutually reciprocal relations and work to strengthen it.”

The net loser in all these developments is China. There was a time when in Japan and Europe, the issue was about managing the bilateral relationship with China. Now, it is all about coordination and cooperation with allies and partners with a view to checking Beijing.

China worries that Japan is playing a key role in building the Indo-Pacific coalition to resist its rise. Japan has also made it clear that it would not stand by while Taiwan was overwhelmed. The Japanese believe that if Taiwan fell, China could constrict Japan’s key trade routes and increase pressure on the Senkaku islands and enhance its ability to coerce Japan. As it is, the Chinese and Japanese have a significant dispute over their maritime boundary in the sea between Japan and Taiwan.