The following is the full text of the speech that Dr. Masashi Nishihara, President of the Research Institute for Peace and Security, gave at Bingham McCutchen, LLP, San Francisco on April 1, 2011. The meeting was cosponsored by the Bingham McCutchen, the Japan Society of Northern California, the Asia Society of Northern California, and the Japanese Consulate-General in San Francisco.

Japan’s Defense Policy and East Asia

Masashi Nishihara

It is my great honor to be invited to this distinguished gathering. I wish to thank Bingham McCutchen LLP, the Japan Society of Northern California, and the Asia Society of Northern California, as well as the Japanese Consulate-General, for organizing this event. San Francisco is a special city for me, since my very first exposure to American society began with this city in 1959, fifty-three years ago.

Before beginning today’s subject, I would like to express my sincere gratitude as a citizen of Japan for the speedy and great support of the US government and the generous contributions of American citizens after the recent tragedies in Japan. I also greatly appreciate President Obama’s letter of sympathy to Emperor Akihito. The triple tragedies of earthquake, tsunami, and damaged nuclear reactors have indeed placed Japan in a challenging situation, but we will get through this trying time and rebuild our nation.

Now I shall begin my talk.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan’s Government

Less than ten months ago, Naoto Kan came into office with only very limited experience dealing with foreign and security policy issues. Nonetheless, immediately after he became prime minister, he found himself on a diplomatic battlefield. Consequently, he has been forced into on-the-job training, so to speak, in diplomacy and national security. Now, in addition to diplomacy, he must oversee the huge national effort to recover from the March 11 earthquake.

The New Defense Policy

On the whole, Prime Minister Kan’s approach to Japan’s foreign and security policies is conservative. He stresses the importance of the country’s alliance with the United States. He talks about Japan’s “strategic mutual relationship” with China and a “future-oriented partnership” with South Korea. He wants to consult with Russia on the territorial issue. He is critical of North Korea and Iran. And he supports the reconstruction of Afghanistan, the development of Africa, and the idea of a nuclear weapons-free world. All these positions are similar to those of the preceding Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) governments.

So far, the Kan government has offered few new foreign policy initiatives. One exception is the prime minister’s strong interest in Japan’s entering the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) arrangements, in order to enhance the country’s economic competitiveness in the international market. The current tragedy, however, is likely to delay these negotiations. Instead, the government must devote its resources to rehabilitating the devastated region and people and, one hopes, to use this reconstruction to regain Japan’s international status. But if produce and fish from the Sendai region are contaminated with radiation, Japan may have to import them, which may have the added effect of discouraging the revival of local industries.

Aside from this, the prime minister’s main diplomatic concerns seem to be Japan’s alliance with the United States and its relationship with China. In his first policy speech to the National Diet in June 2010, soon after he became prime minister, Kan observed, “Japan is a maritime nation looking out toward the Pacific Ocean, and at the same time, it is an Asian nation. I will base our diplomacy on this dual character. In more concrete terms, I will make the Japan-US alliance the focal point of our diplomacy and also strengthen our links with other Asian countries.”

The Kan government also has introduced a few new initiatives to Japan’s defense policy, as stated in the National Defense Program Guidelines (NDPG), the defense review. The latest defense review, the first such document from the Kan government, was released this past December.

In many, but not all, respects, the Kan government is continuing the LDP governments’ defense policy. As expected, the government pledged to uphold article 9 of the Japanese constitution regarding the use of force, which is confined to defending the homeland (senshū bōei), as well as the Three Nonnuclear Principles, and the like.

Next I will describe the three new areas in the NDPG, all of which are more proactive than those in the LDP governments’ defense reviews.

For the first time, the NDPG refers to China’s military activities as “a matter of concern.” In the past, the Japanese government was careful not to specify China in an official document.

The defense review stresses the need to defend the Southwestern Islands (the Ryūkyū archipelago) with enhanced interservice coordination. Although this is not the first review to cite the need to reinforce the islands’ defense, China’s increasingly assertive diplomacy and military activities over the last few years have led to Japan’s heightened concern.

As a result, the government is putting greater emphasis on the Maritime Self-Defense Force (SDF) than on the Ground Self-Defense Force. According to the NDPG, the Ground SDF will lose about two hundred tanks in order for the Maritime SDF to build six more submarines over the next ten years. At the same time, the Ground SDF is shifting its activities to Japan’s western regions and is developing its capability to conduct landing operations to defend the Southwestern Islands. In this endeavor, the Ground SDF has been training with the US Marines; indeed, part of the Ground SDF will assume the mission of a marine corps.

The cleanup after the earthquake and tsunami, however, supports those who argue that the Ground Self-Defense Force should not be reduced. About 80,000 of its 140,000 troops have been mobilized to the devastated areas to rescue stranded people, recover victims, and clear roads and airports. After the 1995 earthquake in Kobe, the Self-Defense Forces initially had only a minimal role, because the governor of Hyōgo Prefecture did not want them involved in the rescue operations. This time, though, the situation is quite different. The governor of Miyagi Prefecture is a former SDF officer, and he requested the SDF’s help on the day of the earthquake.

The NDPG’s second new initiative is a new defense concept, “dynamic defense,” the ability to deploy forces flexibly, effectively, and efficiently to prioritized areas, since security threats cannot always be precisely predicted. This new concept has been applied to cope with the current tragedy as well as the rising security concerns in North Korea and China.

I think that for the SDF to meet Japan’s national defense needs with limited financial resources, to fulfill its mission of national defense more effectively, and to be more active in the security of East Asia, this concept of dynamic defense is a useful and desirable concept.

The defense review’s third new point is its stronger emphasis on the alliance with the United States. Unlike past defense reviews, this year’s review contains a separate section, “Cooperation with the Ally,” which calls for “deepening the alliance [with the United States].” In fact, Japan’s efforts to meet its security concerns regarding North Korea and China are being considered within the framework of this alliance. Now I will discuss what Japan can do vis-à-vis North Korea and China.

Responding to North Korea’s Aggression

North Korea is one of the main threats to Japan’s national security. North Korea’s internal political process and its foreign and security policies lack transparency. Its erratic behavior, such as the sinking of the South Korean ship Cheonan and the North Korean bombing of South Korea’s Yongpyeong Island, as well as its missile and nuclear tests and frequent hostile references to Japan, also are serious concerns. We thus keep a careful watch for any political disruption in Pyongyang, if not the collapse of the regime, that could destabilize north-south relations. In mid-February, street disturbances in several cities in North Korea, including Sinuiji, were reported, with the demonstrators demanding “light [electricity] and rice.”The upheavals in the Middle East apparently have had an impact on the North Korean people’s desire for economic and political reform.

What role can Japan’s Self-Defense Forces play in the peace and security of the Korean peninsula? Since they must adhere to the doctrine of homeland defense only, they cannot send troops to the peninsula. But the SDF can provide logistical support to US forces in such nonmilitary areas as food and medical aid. The SDF also can supply arms to US forces and offer logistical support to US operations to evacuate American nationals from South Korea. And the SDF can provide goods and services for South Korean forces if the two forces sign an acquisition and cross-servicing agreement.

The United States may in fact want the SDF to join US forces, since the peace and security of the Korean peninsula is directly linked to Japanese security. But because of constitutional limits and South Korea’s reservations about Japanese forces on its territory, the SDF today could not participate in American operations in the Korean peninsula. Nonetheless, if authorized by the UN. the Japanese Maritime SDF and the Coast Guard are permitted to interdict suspicious ships in the Sea of Japan or the East China Sea.

In the future, as part of its self-defense, Japan may develop a preemptive strike capability against North Korean missile sites. Even now, some Japanese jet fighters are equipped with in-flight refueling devices that enable them to fly to North Korean targets and return. Japan may also develop longer-range cruise missiles.

Coping with China’s Growing Military Power

China’s defense budget has increased annually by more than 10 percent for the last twenty years, and in early March of this year, China announced that its defense budget for the coming year would be 13.7 percent higher than that of the previous year. This means that its defense budget has increased by almost eight times in the last twenty years. China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has both purchased and built new destroyers and submarines, and it announced a plan to build as many as six aircraft carriers by 2020.

What is even more disturbing is that since mid-2009, China’s leaders have become more assertive in pursuing their country’s national interests, through both their diplomacy and their naval activities. In addition, the Chinese media have become rather chauvinistic. China persistently protected its interests in the fifteenth Conference of the Parties (COP15), which was held in Denmark in 2009, and it rarely responds to US calls to revalue the yuan. Its naval harassment of Vietnamese fishing boats in the South China Sea in early 2010 created tensions between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). And in April of last year, a helicopter from China’s fleet in the Pacific flew worryingly close to a Japanese vessel. These are only a few examples of China’s recent aggressive and harassing activities.

In September 2010, when the Japanese Coast Guard detained four men from a Chinese fishing boat, China took tough, intimidating measures to recover them: It instructed ten thousand Chinese tourists to cancel their trips to Japan, arrested four Japanese company workers for taking pictures of allegedly prohibited military sites, summoned the Japanese ambassador to the Foreign Ministry office at midnight, and abruptly suspended exports of rare earth minerals to Japan. The Japanese government finally released all the Chinese crew members, including the captain, without negotiating for any concessions from China, for which Kan was strongly criticized. China’s measures indeed damaged Japanese-Chinese relations.

Nonetheless, after the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, the Chinese government and people expressed their condolences and sent help and rescue teams to find stranded Chinese workers. As some Chinese pointed out, “Japan helped China after the Sichuan earthquake in 2008, and now it is our turn to help Japan,” an observation that probably helped improve relations between the two countries.

Nevertheless, China’s assertive naval activities remain worrisome. As recently as March 25, 2011, a helicopter from a ship belonging to China’s State Ocean Administration buzzed a Japanese destroyer cruising near Okinawa. Chinese jet fighters also fly close to Japan’s airspace. Indeed, we suspect that China’s State Council does not have complete control of the PLA’s and other naval activities. Finally, on March 31, China released its Defense White Paper, which, as expected, underscores the importance of naval power.

Under these circumstances, Japan would benefit greatly from a stronger alliance with the United States, and both governments are reportedly working on a new document to deepen the alliance.

The Japanese-US Alliance

One of the principal issues in the alliance is relocating the US Marine helicopter base in Okinawa, an issue that the preceding prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama, completely mishandled. Thus although the two governments agreed to move the base to Henoko, a less populated area, this has not been done, as the Okinawans oppose the relocation within their prefecture.

This situation was made worse by inappropriate remarks by a US State Department official and reported by the Japanese press on March 9 regarding the Okinawans. His remarks damaged relations between Okinawa and the United States and further complicated the relocation issue.

We hope that the US forces’ help after the earthquake and tsunami will advance discussions in Japan about the need to maintain US bases in Japan and to retain US Marines in Okinawa.

According to a recent newspaper report, more than 18,000 American soldiers helped in the aftermath of the earthquake, tsunami, and damaged nuclear reactors, including many marines from Okinawa, as well as nineteen ships, including an aircraft carrier, and 140 aircraft. Besides 144 rescue workers with twelve rescue dogs, the United States contributed sleeping bags, beds, and boats. Members of the US Air Force stationed in Kadena, Okinawa, also helped Japanese troops clear Sendai airport’s 1500-meter runway, enabling C130 and C17 transport planes to land there. The United States also used Global Hawk drones and U2 spy planes as well as satellites to inspect the reactors and sent about forty nuclear specialists to help with the reactors. The US Navy is providing huge containers of water to cool the reactors. Finally, the United States contributed robots to search for leaks in the reactors and is preparing to send 450 troops specializing in radiation control.

The two governments are now trying to downplay the importance of the relocation issue and to “deepen” the alliance through other, less complicated issues. One of these is identifying “common strategic objectives” in coping with North Korea, China, and other common security issues, such as joint research on ballistic missiles and anti-cyber-warfare capability.

A closer alliance should benefit both Japan and the United States. Even though the United States expects Japan to become a normal ally by fighting with them in armed conflicts, Japan is prevented from using force by pacifist resistance at home. This is a significant source of tension between the two governments.

I should note, however, that in some cases Japan’s constitutional constraints may be relaxed. An example is the Anti-Piracy Law, enacted in 2009, which allows Maritime Self-Defense Force ships to help defend non-Japanese commercial ships threatened by pirates off the Somalia coast. Even though Japanese naval ships were prohibited in the past from becoming involved in a “combat area,” this law may lead to Japanese naval ships helping other, non-Japanese, naval ships in combat areas.

The earthquake and tsunami also have raised the issue of the safety of nuclear energy as well as the management of nuclear warheads. Our experience suggests that we should prepare for large earthquakes and tsunamis and develop better technology for cooling reactors and containing the spread of radiation. Again, this would be a subject for the two countries to tackle together.

Concluding Remarks

The security of the Asia-Pacific region will be determined by a trilateral relationship among Japan, the United States, and China. Accordingly, Japan and the United States should not confront China but should try to mitigate its hegemonic tendencies. Japan should also strengthen its relations with other like-minded nations, such as Canada, India, Australia, South Korea, and the ASEAN countries and work for regional multilateral security arrangements supported by the alliance between Japan and the United States.

Thank you very much.

[ UP ]