By Henry Srebrnik, [Saint John, N.B.] Telegraph-Journal
A shifting balance of military power between the United States and China in the East Asia-Pacific region has raised doubts about Washington’s ability or willingness to protect its allies and partners.
According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, Beijing’s military budget reached $219 billion in 2022, more than double what it was a decade earlier, though it is still less than a third of U.S. spending during the same year.
Taiwan is, understandably, the polity most concerned about this, but other states, like the Philippines, also worry and are moving to bolster their own defences. Meanwhile, Japan has announced a massive increase in its military spending, which will allow it to project its power region-wide in response to China’s “strategic challenge.”
Last December Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced plans to double Japan’s defence budget to $315 billion over five years, making it the world’s third largest after those of the U.S. and China, and equivalent to two per cent of GDP, in line with NATO’s own targets, in a departure from Tokyo’s postwar commitment to keep spending at one percent of GDP.
These changes, which fall within the framework of a new National Security Strategy released last August, have radically altered the armed forces’ remit: they will no longer be limited to defending Japan but will have the means to counterattack, and even neutralise, military bases in unfriendly countries. They will be reorganised, with the army, navy and air force placed under a joint command to respond more quickly to emergencies.
Japan will also acquire new weapons that can strike enemy targets 1,000 kilometres away with land or sea-launched missiles -- a move some believe violates its war-renouncing constitution.
A recent Japanese defence ministry white paper describes China as potentially disrupting the region’s geopolitical and military balance and threatening the Senkaku Islands -- claimed by China as the Diaoyu Islands -- and Taiwan, which Japan insists it will defend.
Japan and China have a long-standing dispute regarding the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea, with both sides claiming these islands to be under their jurisdiction. Currently under Japanese control, Japan says that the islands are an inherent part of Japanese territory as per international law.
Sino-Japanese relations deteriorated sharply in 2012, after the Japanese government bought three of the Senkaku Islands from their private Japanese owner. China has increased its presence and activities near the islands in recent times and Chinese naval incursions into their territorial waters have become more frequent. Today, Japanese fishermen continue to have unhindered fishing rights in the vicinity of the islands even while Chinese ships regularly patrol the area.
Also identified in the white paper as adversaries are North Korea, which test-fired intercontinental ballistic missiles near Japan throughout 2022, and, since the invasion of Ukraine, Russia. Japan’s dispute with Russia over the Kuril Islands, which the Soviet Union annexed at the end of the Second World War, is still unresolved.
Japan has also joined Australia, India, and the U.S. in the Quad, officially the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, created as a counterweight to China’s assertive actions. Japan’s relations with India are crucial as both have been victims of unilateral Chinese actions. Both Russia and China are heavily critical of the grouping, with the latter labelling it as “Asian NATO.”
Beijing loudly objected to Prime Minister Fumio visiting Ukraine and attending a NATO meeting in Brussels in March. In fact, Japanese Ambassador to the U.S. Koji Tomita May 9 told reporters that will open a liaison office in Tokyo.
Japan currently remains bound to the pacifist constitution the U.S. imposed on it after 1945. Article nine states that “The Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes.” Its military, known as the self-defence forces, is limited to a strictly defensive role.
Critics argue that it has left Japan ill-equipped to respond to present-day security threats posed by China and North Korea. Keio University professor Tomohiko Taniguchi, former speechwriter and foreign policy advisor to the late long-time former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, has warned that “never before has Japan faced three hostile nuclear powers and non-democratic countries,” China, North Korea and Russia, as is now the case.
Japan has a full alliance with the United States, and a commitment from Washington to retaliate against any country that attacks Japan, including with nuclear weapons. That has worked while America has reigned supreme. But China is now rapidly approaching military parity with America in Asia.
Japanese law has also explicitly banned any nuclear weapons from its soil since 1971. Professor Yoichi Shimada,another long-time friend and advisor to Abe, feels it is imperative for Japan to have some kind of independent attacking power against China or North Korea, “and that includes possibly a nuclear arsenal.”
But by turning its back on pacifism, Japan has put itself further at odds with China. In December, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin urged Japan to “act upon the political consensus that the two countries are cooperative partners and do not pose a threat to each other. Hyping up the ‘China threat’ to find an excuse for its military buildup is doomed to fail,” Wang warned.
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