Japan, US bolstering ties to contain China

Manoj Joshi

Distinguished Fellow, Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi

JANUARY has been a month of dramatic developments in the geopolitics of the Indo-Pacific. Last Friday’s meeting between Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and US President Joe Biden capped the weeklong developments in the US-Japan relationship that have huge implications for the Indo-Pacific, especially for China.

Japan’s decision to sharply boost its defence spending and alter its pacifist posture has now been underwritten by a qualitative shift in the nature of US-Japan ties. Sixty per cent expansion of the defence expenditure of the world’s third largest economy and a major industrial power in the coming five years is a paradigm shift.

As part of this, Tokyo will acquire military capabilities it has till now chosen not to have — counter-strike missiles to deter North Korea and China by their precision-strike capabilities. In addition, Japan will sharply enhance its cyber capabilities, unmanned systems and satellites to support counter-strike missions. Besides, there will be broad-based investments in defence R&D and possibly the emergence of a dedicated Japanese defence industry.

The Kishida-Biden meeting was preceded by the latest round of the US-Japan ‘2+2’ meeting between their defence and foreign ministers, after which the two sides signed a joint statement titled “A new era of strategic competition”.

The statement and the remarks to the media after the meeting suggest that this is a historic shift and that the US and Japan are seriously preparing for the possibility of a major conflict in the region. There are three major components of this effort. First, the doubling of Japanese defence expenditure and outlining a new defence strategy; second, restructured command relationships in the existing US-Japan security alliance and third, substantial posture and capability enhancements.

Japan is establishing a new joint military headquarters for its armed services and the US and Japan say they will explore new command and control arrangements to coordinate with their forces. Till now, where the US-NATO and US-South Korea had considerable combined command experience, there was no comparable experience between the US and Japan.

Tokyo has already announced that it will acquire hundreds of American Tomahawk cruise missiles and an outcome of last week’s meeting is the US commitment to Japan’s space security. According to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, any attack on Japanese satellites would trigger Article V of the US-Japan Security Treaty, requiring the two to “act to meet the common danger”.

In addition to this, it was announced that the US would, by 2025, station a US Marine littoral regiment in Okinawa equipped with anti-ship missiles to defend the southwest islands of Japan that stretch to the proximity of Taiwan. And this is just the beginning; in future we could possibly see Japan joining the core US intelligence alliance — ‘Five Eyes’ — and emerging as a major player in the military export business.

All these developments are hardly pleasing to China. Not only will they change the Japanese relationship with the US and its allies, but also that between Japan and China. The South China Morning Post quoted Liu Jiangyong, a Japanese specialist at Tsinghua University in Beijing, as saying that the developments not only exposed Tokyo’s regional ambitions, but of Washington’s efforts to encircle and contain China.

Within a few years, Japan’s new strategy will begin impacting its place in the international order and in the geopolitics of the Indo-Pacific. So far, Tokyo has chosen to use only its financial clout to establish its influence in the region. It provides substantial official development assistance to Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Vietnam and even China. It also has a major stock of the FDI in the Indo-Pacific region. Its FDI in ASEAN countries like Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam is double of what it has in China. Other countries like Australia, South Korea, India and Taiwan are also major recipients of Japanese investments.

The substantial increase in Japan’s defence expenditure, and more important, its move away from its pacifist policies will now provide Tokyo a new military muscle in the region. Even now the Japan Maritime Self-Defence Force is one of the most powerful in the world and larger than those of the UK and France combined. In the coming years, it will become more powerful and expand its footprint in the western Pacific and, possibly, Indian Ocean.

Before arriving in Washington DC, PM Kishida signed an agreement with the UK to facilitate more joint military exercises. This came after a similar agreement with the other AUKUS member — Australia. The Japanese have also been reaching out to other friends to strengthen their defence ties. As a result, French, Dutch and German warships have been sailing in the region and exercising with the US and Japan.

Last week, too, four Indian Su-30MKI multirole fighters landed at Japan’s Hyakuri Air Base near Tokyo accompanied by two IAF C-17 Globemasters and an Il-78 tanker to participate in exercise ‘Veer Guardian’. The exercise was originally planned for 2020, but was postponed. Japan and India have been participating with the US and Australia in the naval exercise ‘Malabar’ for a few years now.

New Delhi and Tokyo enjoy robust ties, both bilaterally and as members of the Quad. Japan’s new orientation offers opportunities for India in both economic and military fields. India could gain from the Japanese efforts to shift high-tech industries away from China, besides from the overall mood in the Indo-Pacific to establish secure and resilient supply chains.

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