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It will take a lot to break Japan’s post-1945 attitude of restraint and restraint in military affairs. But China and Russia have achieved just that – by convincing the Japanese leadership that they need “counterstrike” capabilities to protect against growing threats.
Japan’s hawkish new stance will be on display at a meeting at the White House between visiting Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and President Biden on Friday. The Japanese leader will explain his decision in November to seek parliamentary approval to spend 2 percent of gross domestic product on defense annually, roughly double what Japan has been spending to date.
“This is a tipping point” for Asia, argues Kurt Campbell, who oversees regional policy for Biden’s National Security Council. It moves Japan from dependence on its own soft power and US arms to a true military partnership. And it redraws the security map, framing a NATO-like alliance for containment in both the Indo-Pacific and the Atlantic.
Why is Japan taking this step towards remilitarization? According to US officials, an exciting moment for the Japanese leadership when China and Russia flew six heavy bombers near Japan in a joint exercise on May 24 was a meeting of the Australia-India “Quad” partnership in Tokyo , Japan and the US was held United States.
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Japan expressed “serious concern” about the flights. But China and Russia did it again in late November, sending two Chinese heavy bombers and two Russian planes across the Sea of Japan. This time, Tokyo raised “serious concerns,” again with no apparent response.
Another wake-up call came in August, when China fired five missiles at Japan’s “Exclusive Economic Zone” after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) visited Taiwan during a string of military exercises. “We protested strongly through diplomatic channels,” said Nobuo Kishi, Japan’s former defense minister who now serves as the prime minister’s special adviser. The lesson was that “nothing stays cross-strait in the strait,” Rahm Emanuel, the US ambassador to Tokyo, told me in an interview.
Japan has gone from talk to action over the past year. A major reason is the shock over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which came less than a month after the announcement of a borderless partnership between Russia and China. “The world has changed dramatically and the Japanese know it,” said Emanuel.
Kishida, although a new and politically weak prime minister, moved aggressively in support of Ukraine. Japan quickly sent military and humanitarian aid and in March successfully lobbied eight of the ten ASEAN countries to support a UN resolution condemning Russia’s invasion.
“Kishida understood early on that the Russian attack on Ukraine represents a hybrid of the Indo-Pacific and European worlds. He saw a fundamental challenge to the world order,” says Campbell. So instead of taking the usual approach of relying on the United States to solve problems, he explained, Kishida has “decided to join forces with Europe.”
At the heart of Japan’s security problem are missiles, and not just from China; North Korea regularly tests ballistic missiles that fly over Japanese territory. A decade ago, Japan invested heavily in anti-missile technologies in hopes that it would mitigate the threat. But a few years ago, Japanese military planners realized that an adversary could overwhelm their missile defense shield. They needed something more.
This is what the “Counterstrike” strategy is supposed to offer. The United States will supply Japan with 400 to 500 Tomahawk missiles capable of hitting missile sites in China or North Korea. Japan also wants to protect its space-based defenses, which include satellite-guided bombs and a Japanese version of the US Global Positioning System, from China’s growing anti-satellite arsenal. Therefore, the Biden administration will expand the longstanding US security treaty with Japan to cover attacks in space.
Japan’s new militancy will inevitably spark a backlash in China, where there is a deep antipathy to Japanese military power dating back to the Japanese occupation of the 1930s and early 1940s. If in doubt, simply visit the Nanjing Museum, which documents Japan’s brutal attack on the city in 1937. Japan has despised power projection since its defeat in 1945, partly out of deference to such historical memories.
Japan is still a deeply peaceful country. But the weight of the past is wearing off, and younger Japanese want a stronger military to deal with belligerent neighbors. A Jiji Press poll last summer found that 75 percent of those aged 18 to 29 supported increased defense spending, and over 60 percent of that age group supported Japanese “counter-strike” capabilities.
China is in the early stages of what may be the largest military buildup in history. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine effectively ended the post-Cold War era. Japan reacts rationally to these developments. But beware: as the global order falters, the chain of action and reaction is just beginning.
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