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Japan transitioning to its own security policy to counter China

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Japan transitioning to its own security policy to counter China Fatton 18 (Lionel P., assistant professor of Security Studies and Asian Area Studies at Webster University Geneva, Asia & The Pacific Policy Studies, ““Japan is back”: Autonomy and balancing amidst an unstable China–U.S.–Japan triangle,” published May 1st, 2018, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/app5.240, accessed 7/17/19, JME.) Japan's security policy is transiting from heavy reliance on the United States and accommodation of Beijing to a more independent posture and harder balancing against China. This is reflected by an unprecedented reform of the Japanese armed forces and an increasingly proactive regional policy. The establishment of the National Security Council in December 2013 fixed a Japanese peculiarity: the absence of a standing and centralised decision‐making body that until then had reflected the passivity of the government in security affairs (Oros, 2017). By acting as “the control tower of foreign and defence policies concerning national security,” the council helps the government formulate a security policy that is both more energetic and independent from the United States (Ministry of Defence, 2014, p. 125). The first ever National Security Strategy, released by the council in December 2013, aims at reforming the SDF and at strengthening Japan's relations with regional partners in order to transform the country into a “proactive contributor to peace” (Government of Japan, 2013b, p. 4). In regard to the reform of the Japanese armed forces, the National Defence Program Guidelines that accompanied the strategy call for the creation of a “dynamic joint defence force” (Ministry of Defence, 2013, p. 7). Similar to the “dynamic defence force” concept formulated in 2010, the new guidelines emphasise the importance for the SDF to be flexible, mobile, and reactive but conspicuously add the need for jointness between the three military branches. 8 This new dimension of jointness breaks with the past and reflects the growing autonomy of the SDF vis‐à‐vis American forces. The SDF branches, ground and naval in particular, had until recently almost no direct relation due to historical animosity and institutional dynamics (Bush, 2010). In fact, the three SDF branches were more integrated with their respective American counterparts than with each other. The current process toward deeper jointness is transforming the SDF into a full‐fledged and operationally autonomous military, and thus a valuable instrument for Tokyo to independently guarantee national security. This deepening jointness at the national level is mirrored at the local level by the development of amphibious warfare capabilities to face the Chinese threat in the East China Sea. The 2013 guidelines provide for the creation by early 2018 of an “amphibious rapid deployment brigade” subsumed under of the Ground SDF (Ministry of Defence, 2013, p. 31). The brigade will be based at Camp Ainoura in Sasebo, Nagasaki Prefecture, were a preparatory unit has been established in 2015. The helicopter carrier Ise, dispatched there since April 2017, will serve as the brigade's central command vessel, and V‐22 Osprey tilt‐rotor aircraft are likely to be integrated into its air wing. Japan has so far relied chiefly on U.S. Marines for the defence of the Ryūkyū Arc and nearby remote islands, including the Senkaku/Diaoyu. The creation of the amphibious brigade, expected to be a first step toward a larger force, reflects Japan's growing military autonomy but also mistrust of American security commitments in the face of an increasingly assertive China (Kotani, 2015). Japan has also become proactive in the South China Sea in order to supplement the United States in resisting China. Tokyo is concerned about Beijing's assertive behaviour in the region, through which some 95% of its energy supplies and 40% of its maritime trade pass. To prevent China from using its growing power in a destabilising manner, the 2013 National Security Strategy underlines the importance of maintaining a liberal regional order based on freedom of navigation, peaceful resolutions of disputes, and respect for the sovereignty of Southeast Asian countries. The strategy notes that Japan would provide “assistance to those coastal states alongside the sea lanes of communication and other states in enhancing their maritime law enforcement capabilities, and strengthen cooperation with partners on the sea lanes who share strategic interests with Japan” (Government of Japan, 2013b, p. 17). Japan has incited Southeast Asian countries to form a united front that would restrain China by upholding the international legal order. To do so, Prime Minister Shinzō Abe visited all 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations within his first year in office, a first for the leader of a non‐ASEAN country, and Finance Minister Tarō Asō and Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida also toured the region. The year 2013 ended with the Japan–ASEAN Commemorative Summit held in December in Tokyo, when the Japanese government pledged some US$20 billion in official development assistance. In the same vein, though with a clearer military dimension, Japan unveiled its Vientiane Vision at the second ASEAN–Japan Defence Ministers' Informal Meeting in November 2016. Through this initiative, Tokyo intends to promote the rule of law and bolster maritime security in Southeast Asia by providing surveillance and technical assistance and by reinforcing defence equipment and technology cooperation. Japan's efforts in maritime capacity building in Southeast Asia intensified even before the Vientiane Vision. The first ASEAN–Japan Defence Ministers' Informal Meeting, held in December 2014, was catalysed by Tokyo's removal of a 40‐year‐old de facto ban on arms export. The 1976 ban was replaced in April 2014 by three loose conditions for export: the arms transfer shall not violate United Nations resolutions; it shall not violate Japan's international obligations; the recipient country shall not be party to a conflict in which the United Nations is involved (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2014). In addition to recovering the ability to provide defence assets to regional partners, Japan has developed a new financial instrument to help Southeast Asian countries purchase some of them. In February 2015, Tokyo revised the charter regulating official development assistance in order to allow for its use to strengthen other countries' maritime capabilities. The provision through development budget of law enforcement vessels and training to coast guards is not prohibited because considered as having “non‐military purposes” (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2015). Equipped with this new legislative arsenal, Japan has redoubled efforts to bolster the maritime law enforcement capabilities of Southeast Asian countries. For example, Tokyo announced the delivery of six second‐hand patrol vessels to Vietnam in August 2014 amidst high tensions with China over the Paracel Islands, where the latter had tried to forcibly position an oil platform. The latest instances of maritime assets' transfer by Japan include radar technology to Indonesia to reinforce surveillance around the Natuna archipelago and five TC‐90 patrol aircraft to be delivered to the Philippines by the end of March 2018. Japan has also been training Southeast Asian coast guards since 2015 at the Coast Guard Academy in Hiroshima and the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo. Japanese support does not only help these countries protect their waters and uphold the rule of law, it also frees money for greater investments in their navies to face China's growing capabilities at sea (Till, 2015). Furthermore, Japan has recently become directly involved in the South China Sea. The country had already demonstrated its ability to project military power in the region in 2013 when over a thousand soldiers and three vessels were sent to the Philippines for relief operations following the Haiyan cyclone disaster. In 2017, Tokyo went much further in intervening in regional dynamics by dispatching its largest warship. Between May and August, the 248‐m‐long helicopter carrier Izumo made a flag‐flying tour in the South China Sea that included various port calls and joint exercises. Although the United States had since 2015 carried out naval operations to uphold free navigation and deter Beijing from taking destabilising initiatives, this was their first Japanese version, though Tokyo refrained from displaying the tour as such. Lastly, Japan has looked beyond Southeast Asia for partnership against China. The 2013 National Security Strategy recognises the growing geopolitical importance of India and calls for strengthening “bilateral relations in a broad range of areas, including maritime security” (Government of Japan, 2013b, p. 24). The two Asian democracies are natural partners in that they share concerns about China's increasing assertiveness and have both competing territorial claims with Beijing. In addition to the recent reinforcement of cooperation in domains such as defence industry and civil nuclear power, the two countries launched in May 2017 the Asia‐Africa Growth Corridor, a move obviously aimed at countering the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative in the Indo‐Pacific region. Download 0.83 Mb. Share with your friends: