A2 – Japan No Rearm/alliance collapse US-Japan relations are resilient, despite conflicts – overwhelming security motivations
Cossa 2004
Ralph A. Cossa, Prof and Pres. Pacific Forum @ CSIS, 11-8-2004, “U.S. Security Strategy in Asia,” IIPS Int’l Conf., http://www.iips.org/04sec/04asiasec_cossa.pdf
U.S. security strategy in Asia today is built today, as it has been for the past half century, upon
the foundation of a solid U.S.-Japan alliance relationship. This foundation, which has seen its fair share of cracks and quakes, appears remarkably resilient at present. In fact, the depth and breadth of defense cooperation between Washington and Tokyo in recent years have been unprecedented. While Japan may not yet be the “U.K. of Asia,’ as once envisioned by Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, it is not too far a stretch to call Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro Asia’s answer to Tony Blair. Prime Minister Koizumi is one of a small, select group of Asia-Pacific leaders who have won Washington’s utmost trust and confidence (and sincere gratitude), given his unyielding support for the U.S. war on terrorism in all its manifestations and his willingness to buck domestic public opinion to provide support to the two major campaigns in Washington’s ongoing war Afghanistan and Iraq. This has paid handsome dividends in helping to achieve what both sides generally agree are the “best relations ever.”
It’s empirically denied, we’ve had major trade friction with Japan in the past
Malaby 2006
Sebastian Mallaby, Columnist for the Washington Post, “Trade And the China Card,” March 6, 2006, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/05/AR2006030500943.html
So the United States and China may be headed toward serious trade conflict. Both sides feel they have shown more than adequate good faith; both have political reasons not to make further efforts. Back in the 1980s and early 1990s, similar friction between the United States and Japan created poisonous resentment on both sides: U.S. politicians smashed Japanese products with sledgehammers, and in 1995 an anti-American demonstration in Japan became the biggest protest march in a quarter of a century.
Correspondents Rerport 2008
Correspondents Report, Asian arms race overstated: thinktank, 6 July , 2008, http://www.abc.net.au/correspondents/content/2008/s2295364.htm
Asia though is getting richer. Asia is spending more on military hardware. What do you see as the difference between modernisation and an arms race? ANDREW DAVIES: Well modernisation, think of it this way - that the countries of Western Europe routinely buy very sophisticated tanks, aircraft, ships and submarines. And no one bats an eyelid. They've been doing it for decades and decades and decades. It's almost seen as just what sophisticated nations do, they spend a proportion of their money on that sort of equipment. And to some extent we're seeing that in Asia as well, particularly in South East Asia. I think what's going on there is that the countries are starting to do what countries elsewhere have been doing for generations. What are your military fears then for Asia? If it isn't an arms race, what should the region be worrying about? ANDREW DAVIES: I think the region should be worrying about a number of things. We're entering a period that we've never been in before, where all of the historic great powers of Asia are simultaneously strong. We'll have Russia, China, India, Japan and South Korea all wealthy and strong at the same time. And we have no experience of that. And then you add the United States into the mix and these are uncharted waters. We've literally never been here before. And it will take some careful diplomacy and shared understandings to thrash out a cooperative future. GRAEME DOBELL: Do you see a cooperative future? ANDREW DAVIES: I think there's plenty of scope for a cooperative future because the degree of economic linkage between the countries of the world today is much greater than it was in the past. And it's not a matter of a couple of colonial powers fighting over regional assets. It's a matter of countries that are going to be enduring powers having to find a way to live with one another, without coming to blows which would do enormous damage to both the stability and the economics of the region.
Re-Arm Good Japanese Re-Arm would create a more stable region
Chellaney 2015
Brahma Chellaney, professor of strategic studies at the Center for Policy Research in New Delhi, a fellow of the Robert Bosch Academy in Berlin and other prestigious titles. “Why Japan Should Rearm,” October 20, 2015, https://chellaney.net/2015/10/20/why-japan-should-rearm/
Japan’s political resurgence is one of this century’s most consequential developments in Asia. But it has received relatively little attention, because observers have preferred to focus on the country’s prolonged economic woes. Those woes are real, but Japan’s ongoing national-security reforms and participation in the new 12-country Trans-Pacific Partnership have placed it firmly on the path to reinventing itself as a more secure, competitive, and internationally engaged country. Japan has historically punched above its weight in world affairs. In the second half of the nineteenth century, Japan became Asia’s first modern economic success story. It went on to defeat Manchu-ruled China and Czarist Russia in two separate wars, making it Asia’s first modern global military power. Even after its crushing World War II defeat and occupation by the United States, Japan managed major economic successes, becoming by the 1980s a global industrial powerhouse, the likes of which Asia had never seen. Media tend to depict Japan’s current economic troubles in almost funereal terms. But, while it is true that the economy has stagnated for more than two decades, real per capita income has increased faster than in the US and the United Kingdom so far this century. Moreover, the unemployment rate has long been among the lowest of the wealthy economies, income inequality is the lowest in Asia, and life expectancy is the longest in the world. In fact, it is Japan’s security, not its economy, that merits the most concern today – and Japan knows it. After decades of contentedly relying on the US for protection, Japan is being shaken out of its complacency by fast-changing security and power dynamics in Asia, especially the rise of an increasingly muscular and revisionist China vying for regional hegemony. Chinese military spending now equals the combined defense expenditure of France, Japan, and the UK; just a decade ago, pacifist Japan outspent China on defense. And China has not hesitated to display its growing might. In the strategically vital South China Sea, the People’s Republic has built artificial islands and military outposts, and it has captured the disputed Scarborough Shoal from the Philippines. In the East China Sea, it has unilaterally declared an air-defense identification zone covering territories that it claims but does not control. With US President Barack Obama hesitating to impose any costs on China for these aggressive moves, Japan’s leaders are taking matters into their own hands. Recognizing the inadequacy of Japan’s existing national-security policies and laws to protect the country in this new context, the government has established a national security council and moved to “normalize” its security posture. By easing Japan’s longstanding, self-imposed ban on arms exports, boosting defense spending, and asserting its right to exercise “collective self-defense,” the government has opened the path for Japan to collaborate more actively with friendly countries and to pursue broader overseas peacekeeping missions. To be sure, Japan’s security-enhancing efforts have so far been limited in scope, and do not open the way for the country to become a militaristic power. Restrictions on deployment of offensive weapons, for example, remain in place. Nonetheless, the government’s moves have proved divisive in a country where pacifism is embedded in the constitution and widely supported by the population. A recent survey by the Pew Research Center found that only 23% of Japanese want their country to play a more active role in Asian security. Another survey last year revealed that only 15.3% of Japanese – the lowest proportion in the world – were willing to defend their country, compared to 75% of Chinese. But the reality is that ensuring long-term peace in Asia demands a stronger defense posture for Japan. Indeed, reforms that enable Japan to defend itself better, including by building mutually beneficial regional partnerships, would enhance its capacity to forestall the emergence of a destabilizing power imbalance in East Asia. It is now up to Japan’s government to win over its own citizens, by highlighting the difference between pacifism and passivity. Japan would not encourage or support aggression; it would simply take a more proactive role in securing peace at the regional and global levels. A more confident and secure Japan would certainly serve the interests of the US, which could then depend on its close ally to take more responsibility for both its own security and regional peace. Americans increasingly seem to recognize this, with 47% of respondents in the Pew survey supporting a more active role for Japan in Asian security. But there remain questions about precisely how self-sufficient Japan would have to be to carry out this “proactive pacifism” – a term popularized by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe – consistently and effectively. Would Japan need to become a truly independent military power, with formidable deterrent capabilities like those of the UK or France? The short answer is yes. While Japan should not abandon its security treaty with the US, it can and should rearm, with an exclusive focus on defense. Of course, unlike the UK and France, Japan does not have the option to possess nuclear weapons. But it can build robust conventional capabilities, including information systems to cope with the risk of cyber warfare. Beyond bolstering Japanese security and regional stability, such an effort would likely boost Japan’s GDP and yield major profits for American defense firms. As a status quo power, Japan does not need to match Chinese military might. Defense is, after all, easier than offense. Still, the rise of a militarily independent Japan would constitute a game-changing – and highly beneficial – development for Asia and the rest of the world.
Allies already support a rearmed Japan
Pilling et al 2012
David Pilling, Roel Landingin, and Jonathan Soble, Asia-Pacific writers for the Financial Times, “Phillippines backs rearming of Japan,” December 9, 2012, http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/250430bc-41ba-11e2-a8c3-00144feabdc0.html#axzz4DaKUVV7q
The Philippines would strongly support a rearmed Japan shorn of its pacifist constitution as a counterweight to the growing military assertiveness of China, according to the Philippine foreign minister. “We would welcome that very much,” Albert del Rosario told the Financial Times in an interview. “We are looking for balancing factors in the region and Japan could be a significant balancing factor.” The unusual statement, which risks upsetting Beijing, reflects alarm in Manila at what it sees as Chinese provocation over the South China Sea, virtually all of which is claimed by Beijing. It also comes days before an election in Japan that could see the return as prime minister of Shinzo Abe, who is committed to revising Japan’s pacifist constitution and to beefing up its military. A constitutional revision that upgraded Japan’s Self-Defence Forces to a fully fledged military would allow it far more freedom to operate and could change the military balance in Asia. In spite of its official pacifism, Japan’s armed forces do not lack for hardware. Its navy has about 50 large surface ships, compared with China’s 70-odd. Support from other Asian nations for a rearmed Japan could embolden Mr Abe to change the constitution. Beijing has long raised the spectre of a return of Japanese militarism. The attitude towards Japanese rearmament in the Philippines, itself colonised by Japan, suggests regional fears of an assertive China may be beginning to trump memories of Japan’s aggressive wartime actions. This month, the Philippines objected strongly to an announcement that maritime police from China’s Hainan province would intercept ships entering what it considered its territorial waters. Beijing has started issuing passports that include a map of its “nine-dash” claim to almost the entire South China Sea, parts of which are also claimed by Vietnam, the Philippines, Brunei, Taiwan and Indonesia. The Philippines has refused to stamp the new passports in protest. “The Philippines has contended all along that the nine-dash claim is an excessive claim that violates international law,” Mr del Rosario said. Southeast Asian countries concerned about what they see as an abrupt change in China’s “peaceful-rise” diplomacy have welcomed the renewed commitment to the region by the US in the form of its “pivot”. Mr del Rosario said Manila had agreed to more US ship visits and more joint training exercises. The region is also closely watching Beijing’s stand-off with Tokyo over the Japanese-controlled Senkaku islands, known as the Diaoyu in China. Regional countries have struggled to present a united front against China, which prefers to deal with each capital bilaterally. Last June, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations failed to issue a final communiqué after Cambodia refused to endorse language referring to recent naval stand-offs with China. In July, Japan and the Philippines signed a five-year agreement to strengthen military co-operation though exchanges of personnel and technology. Japan is providing 12 new patrol ships for the Philippine coast guard, financed with a combination of soft loans and foreign aid grants.
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