Japan is going through a course correction. After muddling through seven leaders since 2006, the Japanese populace is finally underlining its disenchantment with perennial instability. In a strong sign of approval for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's policy agenda, Japanese voters have given him a decisive victory in elections to the upper House of the nation's Parliament. With his ruling bloc now controlling both chambers, Mr Abe has acquired more of a mandate than any Japanese leader in nearly a decade, and this will enable him to consolidate not only his fiscal and monetary agenda but also his rather bold foreign and security policy programme.
His government's first defence white paper, released earlier this month, is a significant departure from the past in tone and substance. Gone is the assertion from the previous report that "peace can be secured by making diplomatic and other efforts comprehensively along with defence capabilities." Instead, there is a robust articulation of the need to upgrade Japan's defence, including the capability to attack military bases in enemy countries as well as new equipment and an expanded role for the Self-Defence Forces (SDF).
The paper makes no bones about the threat from China, arguing Chinese actions "could lead to unintended consequences ... this makes us concerned where we are headed". It goes on to state that China "resorts to tactics viewed as high-handed, including attempts to use force to change the status quo, as it insists on its own unique assertions that are inconsistent with the order of the international law". Beijing and Tokyo have been at loggerheads over the Japan-controlled Senkaku Islands and tensions have heightened since the government effectively nationalised the territory last September. China has since continued to send surveillance vessels and aircraft near the uninhibited islets, putting Japanese forces on alert.
The white paper has emphasised once again the importance of maintaining Okinawa as a major stronghold of US forces in Japan, underlining that this "heightens the Japan-US alliance's deterrence and greatly contributes to peace and stability of the Asia-Pacific region". At the same time, it also reflects growing concern in Tokyo about the cuts in military spending by Washington at a time when the US is seeking to pivot its policies towards Asia.
Mr Abe is, thus, signalling that Japan is fully capable of responding to security threats and will not hesitate to change its long-standing policies should the need arise. It is likely that soon Japan will be allowed to exercise the right to collective self-defence, permitting the SDF to join military fighting overseas in co-operation with US forces.
Mr Abe is confident that he can make Japan a "normal" state. He was elected last year after promising to stand firm against territorial provocations from China and nuclear ones from North Korea. North Korea's renewed belligerence, reflected in its third nuclear test in February and the firing of a long-range rocket last December, has added an extra layer of complexity to Japan's security environment. For the first time in 11 years, Japan increased its defence spending this fiscal year. The Abe government is also conducting a review of long-term defence policy guidelines.
China's state media was quick to lash out at Japan, with Xinhua suggesting that "Japan runs the risk of playing with fire" and the Global Times' headline reading "Defence paper shows Tokyo's hysteria". China's foreign ministry said the white paper made "unfounded accusations" and was another attempt to unilaterally raise tensions by playing up the China threat.
It is another matter, of course, that earlier this year China's own defence white paper - the eighth in 15 years - gave ample ammunition to those worried about China's military rise when it pledged to build a strong military "commensurate with China's international standing, and to meet the needs of its security and development interests". It made special mention of Japan "making trouble" over the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands and suggesting that Washington's rebalancing of its military forces was worsening regional tensions. China has been reaching out to new partners in an attempt to respond to the challenges posed by the US pivot to the region. In the largest deployment of its military for manoeuvres with a foreign country, China conducted joint naval exercises with Russia last week.
Tokyo is making it clear that it considers China a potential military threat that would have to be faced and countered in the coming years. This Sino-Japanese dialectic is producing a gradual reconfiguration of the balance of power in the Asia-Pacific with far-reaching consequences for global stability.
New Delhi's own foreign policy is intricately linked to these regional developments. Yet there has been no indication that the enormity of the challenge India faces is recognised at the highest echelons of the policy-making establishment. At a time when even countries on the periphery of Asia, such as Australia, are articulating their defence policies through a white paper and when small states such as the Philippines and Vietnam have publicly reflected on the difficult choices they face, New Delhi has had neither the time nor the inclination to engage its domestic and international interlocutors on the subject. Not only is this damaging India's credibility, but it has also put a big question mark on the rise of India as a regional power.
The writer teaches at King's College, London
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