China seems to be shooting itself in the foot with its latest efforts to bolster its military capabilities and subvert the global system that regulates access to international waters and maritime space. By militarizing Pacific waterways, it has provoked widespread outrage among littoral nations across East and Southeast Asia.
Japan is probably the only regional power that is capable of responding to China’s assertive measures. Taking a tough stance on maritime sovereignty issues, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has turned a potential crisis into a political opportunity, rallying popular support at home and securing one electoral victory after another.
On many occasions, Abe has announced intentions to review Article 9 of the nation’s post-war constitution, thus enabling Japan “to engage in collective self-defense” and to support allies, even if Japan itself is not attacked.
After winning a majority in the upper house election on July 10, he gained a clear mandate to bring the Japanese public to embrace the constitutional revision. If it happens, it would mark a major qualitative shift in the status of post-war Japan from that of a pacifist nation into that of an adventurous power.
Since the Treaty of San Francisco and the security treaty signed with the US came into effect on April 28, 1952, Japan has been integrated with Washington’s security system, housing several US military bases and facilities in the western Pacific. The heavy reliance on Washington for defense means that Tokyo’s greatest fear would be an abandonment by the US in times of war.
Abe worries about China’s rapid rise to hegemony. In the 1980s, Japan was the second-largest economy in the world, rivaling the US. However, since the 1990s its economy has stagnated. In 2010, China surpassed Japan and became the world’s second-largest economy in terms of GDP.
China’s military spending and capabilities are also keeping pace with its economic growth. The escalating sovereignty dispute over the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台) — called the Senkaku Islands by the Japanese and the Diaoyu Archipelago (釣魚嶼) by the Chinese — has intensified a sense of insecurity among the Japanese ruling elite and the general public.
Japan’s fear is legitimate, as it confronts two fundamental questions about its maritime security: Would the US sacrifice Japan and make a deal with China to avoid a great power competition? Or would the US be willing to defend Japan and risk a confrontation with China over the control of the Diaoyutai Islands?
Conventional theorists of international relations regard a war between a rising power and an established power as inevitable. However, a worrying sign that the US might abandon Japan seems to be at play in the Sino-Japanese dispute over the Diaoyutais. While Washington has made it clear that the US would come to Japan’s defense in the event of an unprovoked conflict by China over the islands, it is difficult for any US president to send troops to defend the barren rocks of a Pacific Ocean nation while US national security is not at risk.
In any military alliance, the greater the reliance on a single power for protection, the greater the costs are in the event of abandonment. Without an absolutely reliable ally to turn to in a crisis situation, Japan would pay a heavy price in the case of a US withdrawal. This explains why Japan has gone to great lengths to accommodate the US’ global and regional agendas.
Its decisions to amend the post-war constitution and to increase military spending are based on two pragmatic reasons.
First, Japan is taking steps to strengthen its alliance with the US on all levels. For example, Japan has doubled its efforts to make the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) work. Tokyo did not dare join the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank without Washington’s approval. There is little room for Abe to maneuver when Washington always dictates Tokyo’s foreign policies.
Second, Abe has seriously considered the possibility that the US might compromise with China at the expense of Japan’s security. He is preparing Japan for a worst-case scenario in which it would need to rely on itself, not the US, for defense in a conflict with China. Without a backup plan, Japan would be at the mercy of outside powers.
The symbolic gesture of the US abandoning Japan is bound to heighten Taiwan’s greatest fear of the same scenario for itself. Since Beijing regards Taiwan as one of its “core interests,” it will definitely pressure Washington to compromise over the Taiwan question. In this regard, the military resilience of Japan is key to the continuation of Taiwan as an independent entity.
As Japan is deepening ties with countries in Southeast Asia and South Asia to balance against China, it gives Taiwan much maneuverability in regional politics. Even though there is no formal diplomatic relationship, both Taiwan and Japan have longstanding social, economic and cultural ties. Abe was one of the first foreign leaders who publicly congratulated President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) for her electoral victory as the first democratically elected female president of Taiwan in January.
Perhaps the most feasible step for the nation at this moment is to seek the support of Japan for Taiwan’s participation in the TPP. This would test the ability of the Tsai administration to engage regional partners and to renegotiate and compromise over geopolitical and maritime sovereignty issues.
In doing so, it would give Taiwan a larger platform to launch its “new southbound policy” and to rejuvenate the economy through tighter integration with global and regional markets.
Joseph Tse-hei Lee is a professor of history at Pace University in New York.
Could Asia be on the verge of a new wave of nuclear proliferation? A look back at the early history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which recently celebrated its 75th anniversary, illuminates some reasons for concern in the Indo-Pacific today. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin recently described NATO as “the most powerful and successful alliance in history,” but the organization’s early years were not without challenges. At its inception, the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty marked a sea change in American strategic thinking. The United States had been intent on withdrawing from Europe in the years following
My wife and I spent the week in the interior of Taiwan where Shuyuan spent her childhood. In that town there is a street that functions as an open farmer’s market. Walk along that street, as Shuyuan did yesterday, and it is next to impossible to come home empty-handed. Some mangoes that looked vaguely like others we had seen around here ended up on our table. Shuyuan told how she had bought them from a little old farmer woman from the countryside who said the mangoes were from a very old tree she had on her property. The big surprise
Ursula K. le Guin in The Ones Who Walked Away from Omelas proposed a thought experiment of a utopian city whose existence depended on one child held captive in a dungeon. When taken to extremes, Le Guin suggests, utilitarian logic violates some of our deepest moral intuitions. Even the greatest social goods — peace, harmony and prosperity — are not worth the sacrifice of an innocent person. Former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), since leaving office, has lived an odyssey that has brought him to lows like Le Guin’s dungeon. From late 2008 to 2015 he was imprisoned, much of this
The issue of China’s overcapacity has drawn greater global attention recently, with US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen urging Beijing to address its excess production in key industries during her visit to China last week. Meanwhile in Brussels, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last week said that Europe must have a tough talk with China on its perceived overcapacity and unfair trade practices. The remarks by Yellen and Von der Leyen come as China’s economy is undergoing a painful transition. Beijing is trying to steer the world’s second-largest economy out of a COVID-19 slump, the property crisis and