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Using the Ukraine War and rising tensions between China and Taiwan, Japan is taking a fresh look at building its military and its capabilities.
The Trends Journal has reported on how the conflict in Ukraine has prompted other countries—from Germany to Taiwan—to reconsider their defenses. (See “WILL CHINA SOON INVADE TAIWAN?” “SPOTLIGHT CHINA: EAST VS. WEST,” and “JAPAN: WILL CHINA ATTACK TAIWAN LIKE RUSSIA INVADED UKRAINE?”)
Fumio Kishida, the Japanese prime minister, summed up his government’s fears in May during a visit to London with outgoing British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. He told reporters that Ukraine could very well be “East Asia tomorrow.”
Japan’s foreign ministry issued a statement shortly after the 24 February invasion that Moscow’s aggression “shakes the foundation of international order not only in Europe but also in Asia.” The comment, although benign, was unusual for Tokyo, which tends to avoid wading into such issues.
Against the Law?
Following Japan’s defeat by the United States in WWII, the 1946 Constitution of Japan written by Washington includes Article 9 that legally prohibits Japan from possessing combat potential and waging war.
Despite those limitations, the International Institute for Strategic Studies reports that Japan is the world’s sixth-best army in terms of funding.
The Financial Times recently spoke to Japanese citizens to get a sense of what issues are paramount before Sunday’s upper house election. Hisao Terasawa, 73, a small business owner, told the paper that he will support lawmakers who have security on top of their agendas.
“For too long, Japan has ignored the issue of how to defend itself,” he said. “There is a blind faith that China won’t invade [Taiwan] but what are to do if there was an invasion? Look at what happened. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was unprovoked.”
The paper also pointed to a poll conducted by NHK, the state broadcaster, that found a shift in concerns among voters in the country.
Asahi Shimbun, a national newspaper, published a survey in May that showed 64 percent of the respondents believe the country should boost its defense capabilities.
Takao Toshikawa, the editor of Insideline, a political newsletter, told the newspaper that it is likely the first time in two decades that “foreign policy and security has emerged on the front lines of an election.”
Japan currently spends about 1 percent of its GDP on its military, making Tokyo the world’s seventh-biggest military spender. The country’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party recently proposed increasing the military budget to about 2 percent of the GDP by 2027.
Tomoaki Iwai, a professor emeritus of Japanese political science at Nihon University in Tokyo, told The Wall Street Journal that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine ended the theory that great powers will behave rationally.
“If that’s the case, you never know what countries such as Russia and China would do, and the Japanese people have started to recognize this,” he said.
Abe Assassinated
Shinzo Abe, the former Japanese prime minister, was assassinated while campaigning on Friday in the city of Nara.
One doctor who was first to treat Abe at the scene told reporters that the former prime minister was shot through the heart.
Two days later, his ruling coalition won a clear majority of parliament and top of the agenda to revise the country’s constitution to now make it legal for Japan to maintain a military, even though it has security forces.
While being credited for his domestic achievements, Abe was unable to ease tensions with South Korea. One of the top issues dividing the countries is the compensation for wartime slave labor during Tokyo’s colonial occupation of Korea.
Seoul recently announced plans to resolve the issue that has been a source of distress between the two countries after South Korea’s Supreme Court told a couple of Japanese companies to compensate the families of victims.
Although compensation was not expected from the government, both Seoul and Tokyo responded. Japan imposed sanctions on Seoul’s semiconductor industry in 2019.
There was a hearing on 4 July and lawyers for the laborers insisted that the dispute will only be settled when Tokyo and these companies—Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal—fulfill their responsibility.
The Asahi Shimbun reported that the lawyers called for direct talks between the plaintiffs and company officials. The report pointed out that there is also an unsettled lawsuit by former South Korean “comfort women,” who demand retribution from Japan.
TRENDPOST: The Trends Journal has reported extensively on Washington’s effort to form a Pacific NATO to stop the growing threat of China in its tracks. Japan and South Korea are pivotal in that equation. (See “AUSTRALIAN PM PRAISES NATO-AFFILIATED ‘ASIA-PACIFIC FOUR’.”)
As we have reported, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol is the first piece of the puzzle. He is a former prosecutor who will almost certainly push Seoul into Washington’s orbit. South Korea is the third-largest American military presence outside the U.S. behind Japan and Germany.
He is reportedly looking to resolve these long-festering issues with Tokyo to secure a closer partnership in the future.
The South Korean president was the first to attend a NATO summit earlier this month. China and Russia were key topics. He said that there is clearly “a new structure of competitions and conflicts is taking shape, there is also a movement that denies the universal values that we have been protecting.”