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| China-Japan-Koreas |
| Beijing's Taiwan Aggression Has Backfired in Tokyo |
| 2022-08-13 |
| [ForeignPolicy] Military exercises have stiffened Japanese resolve. China’s four days of military exercises encircling Taiwan in response to a visit by U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi last week has clear ramifications for Japan. The show of military muscle just 70 miles from Japanese territory and the firing of ballistic missiles into waters controlled by Japan were clearly meant as a warning that the country risks being dragged into any future conflict in the region. While China’s motives in indirectly targeting Japan are not known, the results are pretty clear. The surprisingly extensive military action is bringing a new sense of urgency to heighten Japan’s defense capability, substantially raise the defense budget, and, potentially, institute new rules that would for the first time allow preemptive military steps if Japan is at risk. It’s hard to see how any of these meet Beijing’s policy goals. The military exercises included the firing of five missiles that overflew Taiwan and landed in Japan’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ). Japanese Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi said the firings represented “serious threats to Japan’s national security and the safety of the Japanese people.” China’s foreign ministry brushed aside Japan’s protests. It said that there was no EEZ, because Japan had failed to negotiate with China over proper boundaries between Chinese territory and the string of islands that stretch from Japan’s Okinawa region, with the westernmost isle just 70 miles from Taiwan. Beijing, which claims 90 percent of the entire South China Sea as its own, is no stranger to sweeping maritime claims. Japanese analysts saw China’s actions as a direct warning, especially in relation to Japan’s hosting of more than 50,000 U.S. service personnel, the largest offshore deployment of U.S. forces in the world. “The purpose of those kind of threatening [actions] is … make Japan recognize that if Japan cooperates with the United States to contain China or to block China conducting the unification operation of Taiwan, then Japan must be involved in the war, must be damaged by the Chinese military operation,” Bonji Ohara, a senior fellow at the Sasakawa Peace Foundation, told NHK television. But, as Chinese officials should know well, intimidation seldom produces moderation from the other side. Witness the efforts to scare Taiwan in 1996 with missile launches a few weeks ahead of the country’s first direct presidential election. The result was a clear victory for the independence-minded Lee Teng-hui. The new threats could instead create a “Finland moment” for Beijing. After threatening his neighbors, this year Russian President Vladimir Putin got what he least wanted: a massive expansion in NATO, with long-neutral Finland and Sweden moving to join the military alliance. The landing of missiles in waters close to Japanese territory, coupled with various threats and a claim that Japan is somehow responsible for the Taiwan situation, will do little to improve relations. It doesn’t help that China is in the middle of a surge of anti-Japanese public feeling, leading to the cancellation of cultural festivals and anime conventions across the country. The new missile launches come at an important time for Japan. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, fresh from a strong showing in parliamentary elections, has promised a significant increase in Japan’s defense spending. Japan’s military (officially the Self-Defense Forces) is one of the largest and considered among the most capable in the world, but the spending level has been unofficially capped at around 1 percent of annual GDP, half the level requested for NATO countries and well below the 3.7 percent racked up by the United States in 2020. Some influential members in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) have called for it to be doubled over the next five years. Kishida has been more circumspect, no doubt considering the implication for Japan’s already massive debt load at an estimated 250 percent of annual GDP. In addition to the fiscal impact, opponents of higher spending fear a return to Japanese militarism and see the potential for a new arms race. The pressure will now be on, however, for Kishida to come up with something sizable at the very least. “When you look at the problems in Taiwan, the stronger the recognition that Japan is in a very harsh international environment. As a result, I think the debate about strengthening Japan’s defense capabilities will intensify,” Harukata Takenaka, a professor at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo, said on TV Tokyo. As always in a country given to gradualist politics, the move toward a stronger military has been gaining traction for many years. Former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, killed in an attack last month, had pushed through legislation in 2015 that allows Japan’s Self-Defense Forces to take part in collective defense with its U.S. allies. The move was highly controversial in light of Japan’s constitution that bans the use military force except in direct defense of the country. With that bedded down (and the concept now given an inadvertent boost by Beijing), defense hawks within the ruling LDP, many from the faction previously headed by Abe, are now pushing the envelope further to authorize preemptive strikes against a country threatening Japan. The ostensible target is nuclear-armed and always bellicose North Korea (largely forgotten recently as global attention has shifted to Taiwan). But the rules could conceivably apply more broadly. Polls show fairly solid support for the concept, although advocates prefer calling it “counterstrike capabilities” to avoid the image problems raised by the idea of a preemptive attack. |
| Posted by:Skidmark |