Observing Japan
Japan's Zweitenwende
Some initial thoughts on the three national security documents
On 16 December 2012, the Liberal Democratic Party won 294 seats in Japan’s general election, ushering the party back into power and its leader, Abe Shinzo, back into the premiership. As he prepared to assume office, Abe declared that his government’s mission would be overcoming the crises Japan faced in its economy, its foreign policy, its education system, and in the reconstruction of earthquake-and-tsunami-stricken Tohoku.
Ten years later to the day, on Friday, 16 December 2022, Prime Minister Kishida Fumio’s government announced three new documents – a new National Security Strategy, Japan’s first since 2013 (eng; jp); a new National Defense Strategy, replacing the formerly named National Defense Program Guidelines (eng; jp); and a new Defense Capability Construction Plan, replacing the Mid-Term Defense Program (jp) – intended to address a worsening global crisis. As the prime minister said in his opening remarks at the press conference announcing the three documents:
I have long said that the world is at a historical crossroads. Over the past thirty years, globalization has progressed, and the world has become increasingly unified and linked. However, in recent years, due to changes in the balance of power in the international community, conflicts between countries and open competition over national interests have become more apparent, and divisions within globalization have intensified.
While Kishida’s national security documents seemingly go further than Abe ever did – the massive spending increase of ¥43 trillion ($314.5bn in current dollars) over five years outlined in these documents, the acquisition of so-called “counterattack” capabilities being the most notable additions, the description of China as the most serious challenge faced by Japan in the postwar era – the strategy outlined by the Kishida government is less a departure from Abe’s strategic vision than its fulfillment. Indeed, the new National Security Strategy may be at least as descriptive as it is prescriptive; the reality is that this is an articulation of how the Japanese government has approached national security for much of the past ten years, adapted for a new environment. Thus, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, China’s exercises around Taiwan, or North Korea’s ongoing missile barrages are less specific triggers for a shift by the Japanese government than events that confirmed what the late Abe and others have been saying. Japan faces a dangerous world – not least in its neighborhood – and the government needs to take national security more seriously, which means (1) doing whatever it takes to keep the U.S. engaged, (2) working closely with like-minded countries in the Indo-Pacific and elsewhere, and (3) being more prepared to take responsibility for Japan’s defense.
This is not to downplay the significance of the changes in these documents. By realizing the vision articulated in the three documents, Japan might finally become a “normal nation” in terms of its ability to defend itself. But these documents are the result of a long-term process of thinking about Japan’s changing threat environment. In many ways, the descriptions of the risks facing Japan are quite similar to the 2013 National Security Strategy. To be sure, the Kishida government may not have been able to be as ambitious without the Ukraine war – given that the war produced what appears to be an enduring shift in the Japanese public’s willingness to support a stronger national defense – but the changes announced Friday are both the culmination of a long-term process of identifying the rapidly changing threat environment and articulating new ways of managing it, and the start of a long-term process of implementing changes necessary for Japan to assume greater responsibility for its own defense.
But rather than summarize the contents of new documents I want to identify some features that seemed notable to me.
Security and prosperity
First, this is a profoundly economic strategy. Japan of course has a long history of viewing national strategy through an economic prism, and the Kishida government’s National Security Strategy is no exception. The document opens with a statement about deglobalization, consistent with rhetoric that we’ve heard from Prime Minister Kishida Fumio and other senior political leaders this year.
We are reminded once again that globalization and interdependence alone cannot serve as a guarantor for peace and development across the globe.
At one point, the strategy notes that the emergence of issues like supply chain resilience, threats to critical infrastructure, and technological competition means that national security now extends to economic issues, making economic measures part of Japan’s national security policies. But when I say that this strategy is fundamentally about economics, I meant something more than what is now called “economic security.”
At its most basic, the new National Security Strategy argues that “Japan has enjoyed the fruits of peace, stability, and economic development in the international community through globalization” based on the international order maintained by Japan and its peers among the advanced industrial democracies, and that this order that has enabled Japan to prosper – and, indeed, is probably even more crucial to Japanese prosperity as its population shrinks.
But this order is now under threat from “some states not sharing universal values.”1 The document argues that the erosion of norms against the use of force to change the status quo, state capitalist methods of economic development and technological competition, and the blurring of the lines between war and non-war through cyber warfare, disinformation campaigns, and other attempts to manipulate or restrict access to global commons all threaten to upend the international order upon which Japan’s prosperity rests.
While the document repeatedly refers to the defense of universal values – liberty, democracy, respect for human rights, and the rule of law – I think the logic of this document repeatedly comes back to fundamental idea that a world of rival economic blocs, warfare (conventional, hybrid, or otherwise), weaponized interdependence, techno-nationalist competition, and the breakdown of global rule-making would leave the Japanese people poorer and more vulnerable to coercion that limits Japan’s autonomy. Japan’s dependence on imported food, energy, and raw materials – as well as, increasingly, foreign labor – mean that Japan may stand to lose more from the end of a rules-based international order than many.
Constitutional matters
Due to Article 9 of Japan’s Constitution – prohibiting the use of force for the settlement of international disputes – Japan’s security policy debates have long been predominantly legalistic, less about what risks Japan faces in the world than about what the Constitution, as interpreted by the Cabinet Legislation Bureau, permits the government to do in name of national defense. The passage of the Abe government’s national security legislation in 2015, which updated Japan’s national security policies in light of the CLB’s 2014 determination that Article 9 did not in fact forbid Japan from exercising its right of collective self-defense, may have been the apotheosis of this approach to security policymaking. The months-long parliamentary battles about the legislation focused on abstract scenarios when Japan might be called to aid an ally instead of frankly debating the security environment and the capabilities needed to defend national interests.
The Kishida government’s National Security Strategy explicitly says this is not a matter for constitutional or legalistic debate. The strategy says that counterattack capabilities are permissible within the bounds of the constitution and international law, citing the government’s interpretation of 29 February 1956 that “as long as it is recognized that no other means are available to defend against attacks by guided missiles, etc., attacking missile bases is possible within the scope of self-defense in legal terms.” The non-acquisition of strike capabilities, the strategy argues, was a matter of policy, not law. It also states that any use of force would adhere to the “three conditions” enshrined in the 2015 legislation. In other words, the Kishida government is challenging critics to argue against its analysis of the international security environment instead of falling back on constitutional appeals. (Whether that effort succeeds is another matter: the Japanese Communist Party, for example, has criticized the three documents on both constitutional and national security grounds.)
The end of the beginning
Finally, it is worth stressing that as significant as the changes introduced in the three documents are, they mark the start of what could be a lengthy and complicated process of strengthening Japan’s ability to defend itself. “In the event of an invasion of Japan,” the strategy says, “Japan will assume primary responsibility for dealing with it, and, with the support of allied countries, will strengthen its defense capabilities so to be able to prevent or repel an invasion.” But achieving this goal will require a long-term sustained effort.
The National Defense Strategy outlines seven functions and capabilities that the Self-Defense Forces will need to fulfill their new missions. This list includes:
Standoff missiles, which entails not only acquiring – and eventually, producing – the missiles but also the command-and-control, intelligence-gathering, and targeting capabilities needed to use them effectively;2
A unified missile defense system;
Large numbers of drones, a lesson that Japan has clearly learned from recent wars between Armenia and Azerbaijan and Russia and Ukraine;
Stronger capabilities across domains like cyberspace, space, and the electromagnetic spectrum;
Better integration of command-and-control and intelligence;
More flexibility and mobility, including strengthening the SDF’s own transportation capabilities while also coordinating more effectively with the private sector;
Sustainability and toughness, referring to the SDF’s ability to stay in the fight.
This last point is perhaps the most revealing. “The current SDF sustainment capability in terms of the availability of munitions, fuel, and equipment,” the document states, “is not necessarily sufficient for the defense of Japan into the future.” Stockpiling fuel and munitions, dispersing and hardening depots, concealing command facilities: these are necessary but not necessarily glamorous measures for strengthening Japan’s ability to assume primary responsibility for its own defense.3
Similarly, political leaders will have to invest more in recruitment and retention of SDF personnel, a major problem given growing labor shortages in addition to the SDF’s long-standing struggles to attract quality recruits. The NDS identifies its personnel challenges in its final pages but is short on solutions to this problem.
These issues indicate that Japan’s own “zweitenwende” is just beginning. It is not enough to announce a major increase in defense spending or bold new capabilities. Senior political leaders will have to ensure that expanded budgets are spent in ways that maximize the effectiveness of Japan’s armed forces.
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These are just my preliminary thoughts on the Kishida government’s three documents. There is a lot of think about in these documents, how they came to be drafted, and how they will be implemented. I may have more to say in the coming days on the debate over how to pay for the defense spending increase and what the opposition parties are saying about the documents. But for now, it is worth appreciating that the changes announced by the Kishida government are significant but will require sustained attention by policymakers to realize effective deterrent power.
I assume that the NSS uses this formulation to add nuance to a “democracy versus authoritarianism” framing, basically acknowledging that not all authoritarians are challenging the status quo.
See the RAND Corporation’s Jeffrey Hornung on these logistical issues.
Japan’s Major Turning Point on Defense Policy
Three new security documents prepared by the Kishida administration mark a new era in Japan’s post-war security strategy.
![Takahashi Kosuke]( "Takahashi Kosuke")
December 17, 2022
The Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force Murasame-class destroyer JS Ikazuchi transits Uraga Channel in front of Mt. Fuji, Feb. 17, 2016.
Credit: U.S. Navy photo by Lt. j.g. William McGoughJapan has marked a critical milestone in efforts to reshape its defense strategy, increase the national defense spending, and allow Tokyo to acquire a counterstrike missile capability.
On December 16, Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio’s cabinet approved the nation’s three key security documents, which will mark a major turning point in Japan’s post-war policy of maintaining an exclusively defense-oriented policy if realized. Japan is in the process of returning to “a normal nation” in the long run by allowing the nation’s possession – and the possible use – of offensive capabilities to strike against enemy missile bases in the event of an armed attack on Tokyo.
Tokyo “is in the midst of the most severe and complex security environment since World War II,” pointed out the new National Security Strategy (NSS), which is positioned at the top of the three documents.
It added that “under the vision of a Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP), it is vitally important for Japan’s security to cooperate with allies and like-minded countries to ensure peace and stability in the region.” Those countries mentioned in the NSS are the United States, Australia, India, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Canada, New Zealand, South Korea, and Southeast Asian nations, among others.
The other two documents are the National Defense Strategy (NDS) and the Defense Buildup Program (DBP), which were approved along with the NSS at the same time for the first time. Together, these three documents will shape Japan’s overall strategy, defense policy, and defense acquisition goals.
The NSS provides the nation’s highest-level strategic guidance for diplomacy, defense, economic security, technology, cyber, and intelligence over the next decade. It has been revised for first time since its establishment in December 2013.
The NDS, formally known as the National Defense Program Guidelines, sets defense objectives and presents ways and means to achieve the objectives. The NDS has come in line with the U.S. Defense Department’s naming convention this time.
The DBP, known earlier as the Medium-Term Defense Program, lays out total defense expenditures and procurement volumes for major equipment for the next five to 10 years.
The DBP document will see Japan increase defense spending to 43 trillion yen ($314 billion) from fiscal year 2023 to 2027. This is a 56.5 percent increase from the 27.47 trillion yen in the current five-year plan, which covers fiscal year 2019 to 2023. This will increase Japan’s defense spending to the NATO standard of 2 percent of the national GDP in 2027 − following Kishida’s instructions to his defense and finance ministers to do so in late November.
The increased defense spending will allow Japan to acquire many standoff missiles that can be used for counterforce strike, including U.S.-made Tomahawk cruise missiles.
Is This a Departure From Japan’s Exclusively Defense-Oriented Policy?
As a reason for acquiring such a counterstrike capability, government officials stressed that missile strike capabilities in the region have significantly improved in both qualitative and quantitative terms, so Tokyo has been forced to enhance its missile defense capabilities. If Japan continues to rely only upon ballistic missile defenses (BMD), officials said, it will become increasingly difficult for Japan to fully address missile threats with its existing missile defense network alone.
Government officials also stressed that a counterstrike capability is within the scope of the pacifist Japanese Constitution and international law, and will not change the concept of exclusively defense-oriented policy, called senshu boei in Japanese. They also pointed out that any offensive capability will be used only if a situation fulfills the so-called Three New Conditions for use of force. There will be no change in Japan’s prohibition on preemptive strikes.
The three conditions for Tokyo’s use of counterstrike missiles are: When an armed attack against Japan or a foreign country that is in a close relationship with Tokyo threatens Japan’s national survival, if there are no other appropriate measures to remove the threat, and if the use of force is limited to a minimum necessity.
Is China a Threat?
The biggest focus of the three security documents is how to deal with a rising China. How will Japan defend itself in the face of China’s rapid military rise? How much defense capability and defense budget will Japan need to confront China? Those are the fundamental questions behind the documents, although never explicitly stated there.
The updated language of the NSS describes China as “the biggest strategic challenge” for Japan, while the 2013 version of the NSS only called China’s actions an “issue of concern to the international community.”
Notably, Japan avoided specifying China as a “threat” even in the updated documents. A major reason for that is the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s political consideration for its junior coalition partner, Komeito, which is backed by Soka Gakkai, Japan’s largest lay Buddhist group. Historically, this religious organization has strong ties with Beijing as it helped lay the groundwork for then-Prime Minister Tanaka Kakuei and his foreign minister, Ohira Masayoshi, to normalize diplomatic relations with China in 1972.
In addition, Kishida, who heads the Kochikai faction of the LDP – traditionally more dovish and pro-engagement with Japan’s neighbors – has repeatedly said, “It is important to build constructive and stable relations with China.”
The language used for China sharply contrasts with the fact that the NSS this time describes North Korea as “an even more grave and imminent threat to Japan’s national security than ever before.”
At the pre-release press briefing held on December 13, I asked the question: “Why didn’t you specify China as a threat?”
In response, a senior official from the Cabinet Secretariat stressed that the Japanese government needs to look at China from multiple perspectives.
“While Japan must develop its defense capabilities by keeping a close eye on China’s national goals, military trends, and military capabilities, China is the second largest economy in the world, so we need to encourage them to be firmly engaged in the international framework. When considering various aspects such as military, economic, and diplomatic aspects, it is not a good idea to simply use the word ‘threat’ toward China,” the official said.
“We call China ‘the greatest strategic challenge ever,’ but that ‘strategic’ also means that we must look at it from different perspectives,” the official added.
On top of that, the Cabinet Secretariat official pointed out that even in the National Security Strategy released by the U.S. government in October, China was identified as “America’s most consequential geopolitical challenge.” The official said Japan and the United States are in step with each other on important documents.
That said, the United States has sometimes referred to China as a “threat” in its important documents. For example, the new strategy “Advantage at Sea: Prevailing with Integrated All-Domain Naval Power” complied by the U.S. Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard in December 2020 repeatedly refers to China as a “threat.”
It is true a dualistic framework – such as conceiving another country as either “threat” or “not a threat” – tends to stir up confrontation and instability. Dualism, especially when intertwined with territorial and historical issues, can lead to a surge of nationalism and patriotism in each country and a loss of self-control.
On the other hand, it is also true that an ambiguous attitude weakens deterrence against other countries and may increase the risk of conflict. An ambiguous strategy can cause misunderstandings and unexpected conflicts, leading to dangerous situations. By contrast, a clear strategy easily spreads to national institutions and enhances the ability to implement policies, and increases internal and external transparency.
U.S. President Joe Biden has repeatedly stated that the U.S. military will protect Taiwan if China invades Taiwan. Apparently, by doing so Biden aims to reduce the risk of an emergency in Taiwan. However, there is no consensus on this, even within the United States – critics argue that Biden’s clarity actually increases the risk of a conflict.
The United States sees China as “the only competitor with both the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to advance that objective.” Washington has positioned the next decade – the same period covered by Japan’s three new security documents – as a critical period.
How should Japan deal with China? The country will continue to wrestle with that question greatly in the coming decade.
AuthorsContributing Author
Takahashi Kosuke
Takahashi Kosuke is Tokyo Correspondent for Janes Defence Weekly.
TOKYO – Prime Minister Fumio Kishida justified the drastic overhaul of Japan’s security policy on Friday as necessary, given that tabletop exercises have shown current defences to be woefully inadequate to stave off an attack.
The candid admission, it was hoped, will be grounds for what represents a drastic pivot from Japan’s post-war pacifism.
By fiscal 2027, Japan will be the world’s third-largest military spender based on current budgets. It will, among other things, boast “counterstrike capabilities” and have an “active cyber defence”.
Conservative newspapers like the Sankei Shimbun – which labelled Japan’s neighbours China, North Korea and Russia as “tyrannical” – and the Yomiuri Shimbun applauded the plan.
But liberal newspapers like Asahi Shimbun, in an editorial, said the defence-oriented principle has “effectively been eviscerated”, warning that it may be a slippery slope towards “unrestrained military build-up”.
Observers also say that while these steps are better late than never, they inevitably raise questions: Can Japan continue to claim it is “not a military superpower”? How will this shape its role as a “shield” to the United States’ “spear” within their security alliance?
How will Japan respond to an inevitable arms race that its moves will catalyse in the region? And, crucially, how will Japan foot the bill?
Under the revised security strategy, Japan will own “counterstrike capabilities” that allow it to strike enemy bases if an attack is deemed to be imminent. It also plans to grow its arsenal of stand-off missiles and develop its own hypersonic missiles.
“It is like a restaurant with a sign touting that it is vegan but continues to also serve meat-based burgers,” Dr Minohara said. “Japan’s security identity has to change, but Mr Kishida has not really explained this to the public. If people don’t understand this, then it is difficult for them to come on board.”
One major obstacle to shifting the security identity, he noted, was Japan’s pacifist Constitution with its war-renouncing Article 9, which reads: “Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, 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.”
A second clause adds: “Land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognised.”
Article 9 was once “reinterpreted” under the late Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to allow Japan to enter combat in the aid of friendly countries under the name of “collective self-defence”.
And it might take some creative manoeuvring to explain how Japan’s new “counterstrike capabilities” do not amount to “war potential”, Dr Minohara said.
At a news conference on Friday, Mr Kishida said the changes are not against the Constitution because Japan retains its “exclusively national defence-oriented policy as a peace-loving nation”.
Yet whether such statements are enough to win the trust of its neighbours is another matter. China, which Japan labelled as “an unprecedented and the greatest challenge” on Friday, although the word “threat” in an original draft was dropped, sees Japan as a stooge of the US.
Japan’s revised security strategy states that counterstrikes will be a last-resort option tapped as “a minimum necessary measure for self-defence”, and that it will observe such principles as that an armed attack against Japan or a like-minded partner occurs that threatens Japan’s survival.
This immediately brings to mind Taiwan, a democratic self-ruled island seen by China as a renegade province to be reunited by force if necessary.
China lobbed missiles into waters off Japan’s Okinawa in August after a visit by US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan, and it remains unclear if a Taiwan contingency in Japan’s backyard will so threaten its survival that it fits the conditions for a “counterstrike”.
Separately, there may also be constitutional issues regarding the pledge to adopt “active cyber defence”, under which private sector companies and telecommunications networks may be asked to share sensitive information or give access.
The Nikkei pointed out on Saturday that this may be problematic under Article 21, which guarantees privacy of communication.
Yet also crucially, Japan is grappling with severe personnel shortages in its Self-Defence Forces that will worsen with its ageing population. Japan’s defence industry is also fragile with manufacturers having shied away from production given the erstwhile reluctance to invest, meaning that Japan will have to rely heavily on imports.
While Japan plans to increase corporate taxes and cigarette levies, while diverting a portion of the disaster reconstruction tax to fund the new defence outlays, the issue is politically sensitive and has led to open rebellion by two Cabinet ministers.
Dr Satoru Nagao, a non-resident fellow of the Hudson Institute, said there are many good ideas, but it is not easy to distinguish which should be the priority especially as Japan seeks to raise money to fund the outlay.
“How should bases be fortified? How should the defence industry be strengthened, without which there cannot be domestic production of drones? What about missile defence and counterstrike capability?”
And Mr Kishida may have a hard road ahead winning the buy-in of the public, Dr Minohara added, given the uncertain economy and the fact that the changes to the security policy were effectively made without any public debate.
“The Kishida government is trying to transform the way Japan has stood as a peaceful country without debate and then asking the public to foot the bill,” the Mainichi newspaper said on Saturday. “This is no way to win understanding for the new security strategy.”
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The U.S. has welcomed Japan’s “bold and historic step” to revise key security documents — laying the foundation for the country’s defense policies for years to come — while China slammed the move, sending an aircraft carrier-led flotilla through a key strategic waterway near Okinawa Prefecture in an apparent message to Tokyo.
The moves by the United States, Tokyo’s top ally, and China, which Japan has formally labeled as its “greatest strategic challenge ever,” came as Japan on Friday approved revisions to three key security documents, in a major shift in defense policy under its pacifist Constitution that signaled it is now more ready than ever to shed some of the postwar constraints on its military.
The revisions to the three security documents, which came after months of debate, will see Japan acquire a so-called counterstrike capability, which allows it to hit enemy bases and command-and-control nodes with longer-range standoff missiles. The country also set in stone a target of doubling its annual defense spending to about 2% of gross domestic product within five years.
"Japan has taken a bold and historic step to strengthen and defend the free and open Indo-Pacific with the adoption of its new National Security Strategy, National Defense Strategy and Defense Buildup Program,” U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan said, praising the defense spending hike, which he said “will also strengthen and modernize the U.S.-Japan alliance.”
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the Pentagon backed Tokyo’s decision to acquire new capabilities “that strengthen regional deterrence,” including the counterstrike capability, adding that the updated documents reflected “important alignment” between the two allies’ vision and priorities outlined in their security strategies.
The documents referred to the U.S.-Japan alliance the “cornerstone” of Tokyo’s security policy, a stance echoed by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who called Japan an “indispensable partner in addressing the most pressing challenges to global stability.”
Antony Blinken | POOL / VIA REUTERS
“Our alliances and partnerships are our most important strategic asset, and 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,” Blinken said.
Japan’s revised strategic documents also revealed a tough new stance toward China as it continues to flex its military muscle near Japan’s southwestern islands, some of which lie as close as 120 kilometers from Taiwan, the self-ruled island that has become a potential flash point for Beijing, Washington and Tokyo.
"China has intensified coercive military activities around Taiwan, and concerns about peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait are rapidly increasing not only in the Indo-Pacific region, including in Japan, but also with the entire international community,” Japan’s new National Security Strategy said.
China has vowed to unify Taiwan with the mainland, by force if necessary. In recent years, Beijing has ramped up military pressure on the democratic island, including by conducting military training at a nearly nonstop clip nearby. This pressure culminated in August, when it lobbed five ballistic missiles inside Japan’s claimed exclusive economic zone near Okinawa Prefecture for the first time ever, during large-scale military drills.
China lashed out at Japan’s policy shift late Friday, with the Chinese Embassy in Tokyo decrying the move to characterize Beijing as an unprecedented challenge.
"Saying such things within the documents severely distorts the facts, violates the principles and spirit of the four China-Japan political documents, wantonly hypes the ‘China threat’ and provokes regional tension and confrontation," a spokesperson of the Chinese Embassy said in a statement published by the state-run Global Times newspaper.
China’s Liaoning aircraft carrier sails in the Pacific Ocean on Friday. | DEFENSE MINISTRY JOINT STAFF / VIA KYODO
The criticism was part of an apparent two-pronged response out of Beijing, which also saw China send a six-ship flotilla led by its Liaoning aircraft carrier into the Pacific Ocean after transiting the Miyako Strait between Okinawa’s main island and Miyako Island.
The sailing by China’s carrier and five accompanying vessels, including two advanced guided-missile destroyers and a combat support ship, according to the Japanese Defense Ministry, was the first in the area since May. The flotilla was expected to conduct exercises in the Pacific Ocean.
Amid the closer cooperation with Washington — and Tokyo’s willingness to signal a harder line in its China policy despite an ice-breaking first meeting last month between Kishida and Chinese leader Xi Jinping — analysts say the moves are unlikely to lead to a further deterioration of ties with Beijing.
“What this does is to bring the language used in Japan’s security discourse in line with the rhetoric in Europe and the U.S.,” said Sebastian Maslow, an expert on Japanese security issues and a lecturer at Sendai Shirayuri Women’s College.
Still, perhaps one of the most striking aspects of the new security documents was Japan’s growing willingness to bring up the issue of Taiwan, long seen as a kind of taboo in Tokyo for fear of alienating Beijing, which views the fate of the democratic island as a core issue.
Although Tokyo has not changed its Taiwan policy or committed to helping defend the democratic island in the event of a conflict, experts view its repeated mentions in the revised security documents as an indication of support for Taipei.
“Japan considers Taiwan a key concern for its own national security,” said Maslow. “As such, the message is that Tokyo will be a stakeholder in whatever crisis might unfold and that it is willing to play its role in preserving the current status quo.”
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Contentious major defense policy shift shows Japan wariness of China
Japan's controversial major defense policy shift to obtain an enemy base strike capability underscores that the Asian country has become seriously wary of China's possible use of military force against Taiwan, security experts said.
By reviewing its exclusively defense-oriented postwar policy, Japan would put more emphasis ahead on thwarting China's ambition to bolster its military presence in nearby waters than on guarding against North Korea's missile and nuclear weapons threats.
But it is uncertain whether Japan's possession of what the government calls a "counterstrike capability" can work as a deterrent against China, as the concept is not designed to enable Tokyo to boost its defense capabilities to pose a threat to Beijing.
At home, meanwhile, some pundits still claim that gaining the capability would violate Japan's war-renouncing Constitution that only allows the nation to have minimum necessary defense power.
In the National Security Strategy updated Friday by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's cabinet, Japan promised to acquire the capability to fire upon and disable enemy missiles before they are launched from foreign territory to deter "armed attacks."
The government's long-term security policy guidelines explained that Japan faces the "most severe and complicated security environment" since World War II, in an apparent allusion to China's rising threat.
Toshiyuki Ito, a professor at Kanazawa Institute of Technology's Toranomon Graduate School, said, "For the public, the government has explained that acquiring a counterstrike capability is to address North Korea's missile activities."
North Korea has test-fired longer-range missiles at an unusually fast pace since the beginning of this year, while worries are lingering that Pyongyang could carry out its seventh and first nuclear test since September 2017.
Substantially, however, the latest move "represents Japan's preparedness for a China-Taiwan conflict," Ito said, with the NSS stressing that the peace and stability of the Taiwan Strait are essential for those of the international community as well.
The revision of the NSS, along with two other key defense documents, came as tensions over the self-ruled democratic island of Taiwan have been mounting between Communist-led China and Japan's close security ally, the United States.
Beijing and Taipei have been governed separately since they split in 1949 as a result of a civil war. China regards Taiwan as a breakaway province to be reunified with the mainland.
Chinese President Xi Jinping, who secured an unprecedented third five-year term as head of the ruling Communist Party in October, has not ruled out the use of force to bring the island under its control, repeatedly describing Taiwan as a "core interest."
After U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the third-highest-ranking official of the country, made a trip to Taiwan in early August, China conducted large-scale military drills near the island in retaliation.
Some ballistic missiles launched from China fell into Japan's exclusive economic zone, jeopardizing the security of the region.
Ito, a former vice admiral at Japan's Maritime Self-Defense Force, said China and Taiwan are more likely than before to engage in warfare within the "next five years," which almost coincides with the period when Tokyo will be trying to double its defense budget.
Under Japan's new security program, around 43 trillion yen will be allocated to its defense spending for five years from fiscal 2023, jumping up from 27.5 trillion yen under the existing plan for the five years from fiscal 2019.
Out of the envisioned budgets, about 5 trillion yen will be used to obtain "standoff missiles" capable of being launched from beyond the range of enemy fire.
Ito said Japan's acquisition of a strike capability and expansion of its defense spending would serve as a "bargaining power" to discourage China from exerting its military might against Taiwan "to some extent."
Nevertheless, Ken Endo, a professor at the University of Tokyo's Graduate Schools for Law and Politics, said it is difficult for Japan to dissuade China from military action by only having conventional weapons such as medium-range missiles.
As a pillar of its counterstrike capability, Japan intends to purchase up to about 500 U.S.-developed Tomahawk cruise missiles by the end of fiscal 2027, a government source said. The weapons would put China's coastal areas within strike range.
Endo, well-versed in international politics, said that even if Japan had 500 Tomahawks, the nation could only create "small craters" on the mainland and "wound some people," adding Tokyo would be unable to "deter" China's offensive intentions.
He also said possessing missiles that can reach an opponent's territory would contradict the pacifist Constitution's stipulation 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."
In the updated NSS, Japan's government pledged "not to become a military power," saying the country would only launch a counterstrike as a "bare minimum self-defense measure."
Former vice admiral Ito said the possession of a counterstrike capability is categorized as a "natural right of self-defense" and does not mean that Japan will abandon its exclusively self-defense policy, which the nation has stuck to for the past 75 years.
Other analysts have voiced concern about whether Japan could carry out counterstrikes in a manner that would not be seen as a pre-emptive attack, while Japan's opposition bloc has requested Kishida's government to draw a sharp line between the two.
Sayoko Tanaka, a professor of international law at Hosei University, said it is "hard and inappropriate" to show clear criteria in advance to judge when Japan would invoke the right to self-defense, but the government should "achieve accountability."
To exert an enemy base strike capability properly, Japan should get ready to "precisely grasp the situation of opponents' preparations for an armed attack and its launch," Tanaka added.
© KYODOhttps://koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2022/12/501_341895.html
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| Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida attends a press conference in Tokyo, Dec. 16. AFP-Yonhap |
Japan this week adopted a new national security strategy that includes possession of a ''counterstrike" capability to preempt enemy attacks, and doubles its spending to gain a more offensive footing and improve its resilience to protect itself from growing risks from China, North Korea and Russia. The new strategy marks a historic change to Japan's exclusively self-defense policy since the end of World War II. Here is a look at Japan's new security and defense strategies and how they will change the country's defense posture.
Counterstrike capability
The biggest change in the National Security Strategy is possession of a ''counterstrike capability'' that Japan calls ''indispensable." Tokyo aims to achieve capabilities ''to disrupt and defeat invasions against its nation much earlier and at a further distance'' within about 10 years.
This puts an end to the 1956 government policy that shelved the capability to strike enemy targets and only recognized the idea constitutionally as a last-ditch defense.
Japan says missile attacks against it have become ''a palpable threat'' and its current interceptor-reliant missile defense system is insufficient. North Korea has launched around 63 missiles this year alone including one that overflew Japan, and China has fired ballistic missiles into waters near southern Japanese islands.
Japan says the use of a counterstrike capability is constitutional if it's in response to signs of an imminent enemy attack, but experts say it is extremely difficult to conduct such an attack without risking blame for striking first. Opponents say strike capability goes beyond self-defense under Japan's pacifist constitution.
''(Japan's) exclusive self-defense policy is hollowed," the liberal-leaning Asahi newspaper said.
Doubling defense spending
Japan aims to double its defense spending to about 2 percent of its GDP to a total of about 43 trillion yen ($320 billion) through 2027. The new spending target follows the NATO standard and will eventually push Japan's annual budget to about 10 trillion yen ($73 billion), the world's third biggest after the United States and China.
Kishida said his government will need an extra 4 trillion yen ($30 billion) annually and proposed tax increases to fund a quarter of it. His tax-raise request backfired and the five-year defense buildup plan had to be released without full funding plans while the governing party continued discussing how to pay for the shortfall.
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| Three F-15 warplanes of the Japanese Self-Defense Force, foreground, and four F-16 fighters of the U.S. Armed Forces fly over the East Sea, May 25, in this photo provided by the Joint Staff of the Japanese Self-Defense Force. AP-Yonhap |
Long-range missiles
Over the next five years, Japan will spend about 5 trillion yen ($37 billion) on long-range missiles, with a planned deployment beginning in 2026. Japan will purchase U.S.-made Tomahawks and Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles, while Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industry will improve and mass-produce a Type-12 surface-to-ship guided missile. Japanese defense officials said they are still finalizing Tomahawk purchase details.
Japan will also develop other types of weapons such as hypersonic missiles, and unmanned and multi-role vehicles for possible collaboration with the F-X next-generation fighter jet Japan is developing with Britain and Italy for deployment in 2035.
Cybersecurity
Japan, lacking sufficient cybersecurity and intelligence capability, will have to rely heavily on the United States in those areas in launching long-range cruise missiles at intended targets, experts say.
''Without cybersecurity, Self-Defense Force superiority or Japan-U.S. interoperability is difficult to achieve," according to the five-year defense program also adopted Friday, acknowledging the need to ensure cybersecurity at the SDF and Japanese defense industry.
This is a welcome development for the United States as the Japanese government's weak cybersecurity has been ''a critical impediment to deeper alliance cooperation and expanded information-sharing,'' according to Christopher Johnstone, senior adviser and Japan chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Japan will spend 8 trillion yen ($58 billion) over the next five years on cross-domain defense including cybersecurity and space.
China as 'greatest strategic challenge'
Fear of a regional security environment described as ''the severest and most complicated'' in the postwar era has been a driving force behind the revision to Japan's strategy.
China, with its rapid arms buildup, increasingly assertive military activity and rivalry with the U.S., presents ''an unprecedented and the greatest strategic challenge'' to the peace and security of Japan and the international community, the strategy states.
Russia's war on Ukraine sparked fears of a Taiwan emergency, accelerating the move to bolster Japan's deterrence within the next five years. While North Korea keeps advancing its nuclear and missile capabilities, the main threat is still China, for which Japan has had to prepare ''by using North Korea's threat as a cover,'' said Tomohisa Takei, a retired admiral in Japan's navy.
Still exclusively self-defense?
Because of its wartime past as aggressor and devastation after its defeat, Japan's postwar policy prioritized the economy over security by relying on American troops stationed in Japan under their bilateral security agreement, in a division of roles known as ''shield and dagger.''
Prospects for even closer operation with the U.S. military under the new strategy has prompted concerns that Japan would take more offensive responsibility.
Japan says it will keep its pacifist principle of high standards for arms equipment and technology transfer. But some easing is planned to allow currently restricted exports of offensive equipment and components, including those of the next-generation F-X fighter jet, as a way to strengthen the country's defense equipment industry. (AP)