{"id":77504,"date":"2023-01-13T12:30:06","date_gmt":"2023-01-13T01:30:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=77504"},"modified":"2023-01-13T12:26:18","modified_gmt":"2023-01-13T01:26:18","slug":"the-limits-of-japans-military-awakening","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/the-limits-of-japans-military-awakening\/","title":{"rendered":"The limits of Japan\u2019s military awakening"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

For decades, Japan has based its international clout on economic competitiveness, not military might. But, with China\u2019s lengthening shadow darkening its doorstep, Japan now seems to be abandoning<\/a> its pacifist post-war security policy\u2014which capped defence spending at about 1% of GDP and shunned offensive capabilities\u2014in favour of assuming a central role in maintaining security in the Indo-Pacific region.<\/p>\n

Last month, Japan unveiled a bold new national security strategy, which includes a plan to double<\/a> defence expenditure within five years. That spending\u2014amounting to some US$320 billion\u2014will fund Japan\u2019s largest military build-up since World War II, and implies the world\u2019s third-largest<\/a> defence budget, after the US and China. Importantly, the new strategy includes acquisition of pre-emptive counterstrike capabilities<\/a>, such as Tomahawk cruise missiles from the US, and the development<\/a> of its own hypersonic weapons.<\/p>\n

Japan began laying the groundwork for this shift under former prime minister Shinzo Abe, who was assassinated last July. On Abe\u2019s watch, Japan increased<\/a> defence spending by about 10% and, more significantly, reinterpreted (with parliament\u2019s approval) the country\u2019s US-imposed \u2018peace constitution\u2019 to allow the military to mobilise overseas<\/a> for the first time since World War II. Abe also sought to amend Article 9 of the constitution, which renounces<\/a> \u2018the threat or use of force\u2019 by Japan, but his efforts were stymied by popular protests<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has not run into the same resistance. On the contrary, opinion polls show<\/a> that a majority of Japanese support the military build-up. A similar shift has taken place in Kishida himself, who was widely considered a dove<\/a> when he was foreign minister\u2014a label that he publicly embraced<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The impetus for this shift is clear. In 2013, the year Xi Jinping became China\u2019s president, Japan\u2019s national security strategy called China a strategic partner<\/a>. According to the updated strategy<\/a>, by contrast, China represents \u2018an unprecedented and the greatest strategic challenge in ensuring the peace and security of Japan\u2019. China\u2019s incremental but unrelenting expansionism under Xi has rendered Japan\u2019s pacifist stance untenable.<\/p>\n

This is more apparent than ever in the wake of Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine, which has intensified fears that China could pursue a military option against Taiwan, which, in geographical terms, is effectively an extension<\/a> of the Japanese archipelago. Last August, five of the nine missiles China fired during military exercises in the waters around Taiwan landed in Japan\u2019s exclusive economic zone<\/a>. Japan understandably views Taiwan\u2019s security as vital for its own.<\/p>\n

Japan is not the only once-conciliatory power to respond to Xi\u2019s muscular revisionism with a newfound determination to bolster its defences and forestall the emergence of a Sinocentric Indo-Pacific. Australia and India have embarked on the same path.<\/p>\n

A similar trend toward militarisation has emerged among Japan\u2019s other partners. Germany, another pacifist country, has pledged to boost its defence spending<\/a> to 2% of GDP (the same level Kishida is targeting) and accept a military leadership role<\/a> in Europe. The United Kingdom has already surpassed the 2%-of-GDP level, yet aims to double<\/a> its defence spending by 2030. The US has just hiked<\/a> its already-mammoth military spending by 8%. And Sweden and Finland are joining<\/a> a reinvigorated NATO.<\/p>\n

While Japan\u2019s rearmament is more widely accepted than ever\u2014and for good reason\u2014it is unlikely to be enough to deter China\u2019s expansionist creep. After all, despite having the world\u2019s third-largest<\/a> defence budget, India has been locked<\/a> in a military standoff with China on the disputed Himalayan border since 2020, when stealth encroachments<\/a> by the People\u2019s Liberation Army caught it by surprise. Clashes continue to erupt intermittently, including just last month<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Unlike Russia, which launched a full frontal assault on Ukraine, China prefers \u2018salami\u2019 tactics<\/a>, slicing away other countries\u2019 territories with a combination of stealth, deception and surprise. The PLA\u2019s so-called three warfares<\/a> concept, which focuses on the psychological, public-opinion and legal aspects of conflict, has enabled China to secure strategic victories in the South China Sea\u2014from seizing the Johnson South Reef in 1988 to occupying the Scarborough Shoal in 2012\u2014while barely firing a shot.<\/p>\n

Because China generally avoids<\/a> armed conflict, it incurs minimal international costs for its actions, even as it unilaterally redraws<\/a> the geopolitical map of the South China Sea and nibbles away<\/a> at Bhutan\u2019s borderlands, one pasture at a time. The government in Beijing managed to decimate Hong Kong\u2019s autonomy without facing significant Western sanctions.<\/p>\n

All this impunity has only emboldened Xi, who is now seeking to replicate<\/a> the South China Sea strategy in the East China Sea by escalating<\/a> maritime and aerial incursions to strengthen its claims to the Japanese-administered Senkaku Islands. It has even tried to police<\/a> the waters off the Senkakus.<\/p>\n

Japan\u2019s response to China\u2019s provocations has so far remained restrained, to say the least: no Japanese defence minister has so much as conducted an aerial inspection<\/a> of the Senkakus, lest it anger China. Yet Japan\u2019s embrace of Tomahawk missiles and hypersonic weapons doesn\u2019t necessarily represent an effective means of resisting China\u2019s hybrid warfare, either. For that, Japan must find ways to frustrate China\u2019s furtive efforts to alter the status quo while avoiding the risk of open combat.<\/p>\n

Japan\u2019s push to become more self-reliant on defence should be welcomed. Improved defence capabilities will translate into a more confident and secure Japan\u2014and a more stable<\/a> Indo-Pacific. But if Japan is to \u2018disrupt and defeat\u2019 threats, as the national security strategy puts it, Japanese leaders must move proactively to beat China at its own game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For decades, Japan has based its international clout on economic competitiveness, not military might. But, with China\u2019s lengthening shadow darkening its doorstep, Japan now seems to be abandoning its pacifist post-war security policy\u2014which capped defence …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":482,"featured_media":77506,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[52,26,56,135,301],"class_list":["post-77504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-china","tag-defence-spending","tag-indo-pacific","tag-japan","tag-national-security-2"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe limits of Japan\u2019s military awakening | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/the-limits-of-japans-military-awakening\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The limits of Japan\u2019s military awakening | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"For decades, Japan has based its international clout on economic competitiveness, not military might. 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