Japan's Military Transformation (Agenda)
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Video Transcript
Colin Chapman: Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has provided a breath of fresh air to the crowded streets of Tokyo. This weekend he's confirmed that, contrary to pre-election expectations, Japan will negotiate for a place in the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership, an ambitious trade pact involving 12 nations. Indeed again, contrary to expectations, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party has offered qualified support for this move. That's what happens when a leader sees a significant spike in popularity. Since his return to the job, Abe has taken several incremental bold steps, including relaxing monetary policy and joining America's F-35 program.
Welcome to Agenda. I'm Colin Chapman, and with me again this week is Stratfor's Chief Geopolitical Analyst Robert Kaplan. Well, it looks as if Abe is changing the geopolitics of Japan.
Robert Kaplan: Yes, he has. I think that it's in tandem with a certain normalization that is going on in Japanese society. By normalization I mean a moving away from the long post-World War II, decades-long quasi-pacifism, where military force was delegitimized after a fashion because of the fascist militaristic regime in Tokyo that had ignited World War II in the Pacific. That World War II is now 60 years gone. And the Japanese appear to be moving on, not back toward any militarism but just toward a normal relationship with military power, with national power. And that is momentous. Because Japan's economy, though it may have been in the doldrums these past two decades or so, is still the third largest economy in the world, with a significant population. So Japan, as somewhat of a counterbalance to China, really affects geopolitics in the whole Pacific basin.
Colin: One of Abe's incremental steps, little publicized, is interesting. Japan is joining what's called the American Autonomic Logistics Global Sustainment Program -- not a name that goes around television newsrooms. But in fact it's the biggest military program in history, introducing the F-35 stealth fighter. There's a gamble here, because this is a project whose budget is blown out and has had its share of critics.
Robert: Yes. Remember, there's some context here -- the Japanese had wanted to buy the F-22, which many would say is America's greatest fighter jet. The United States would not export it. The F-22 program has been wound down. The F-35 program is facing considerable difficulties with delays, but it's clear that by wanting to make spare parts the Japanese are edging toward, again, a normal military nation -- a nation that wants the latest and greatest in military hardware. And I think what you cannot divorce all of this from is the rise of Chinese military power. Also the truculent behavior of the North Korean regime, which many would say is more anti-Japanese than it is anti-South Korean and is a real threat to Japan. Therefore the Japanese, facing China, facing North Korea 60 years away from World War II already, are doing whatever they can to beef up their military, and taking part in the F-35 program is part of, you know, is part of a process of being on the inside of military technological innovation.
Colin: As you say, there are doubts about the aircraft, but it would involve an important technology transfer to Tokyo.
Robert: Yes it does, and I think that the United States, as the years go on, is going to discover in Japan the kind of robust military ally that will be extremely important to both countries. Of course Japan is a treaty ally of the United States and has been for many decades, but this was under a different context. In the past it was under Cold War context, and Japan versus the Soviet Union versus so-called Red China, and Japan as a quasi pacifistic, defanged country with a self-defense force more than a military. But now that we're beyond the Cold War, the United States really sees Japan as a balancing power against Russia in the Far East -- a resurgent Russia in the Far East, that is, and against a rising military China.
Colin: What about the state of Japan's navy? After all, one key issue in North Asia is keeping trade routes open, particularly if Japan joins the TPP.
Robert: Japan has a very robust navy that is often underrated. Japan, I believe, has about four times as many major warships as the British Royal Navy. As the British Royal Navy gets smaller and smaller, Japan has 100, 120-odd warships at sea in the western Pacific or deployable, that is. It has niche capacities in submarine warfare, in special operations warfare, it's one of the better diesel submarine -- quiet diesel submarine -- countries in the world, along with Sweden, Spain, Australia. This is a really formidable military that's been quietly becoming more and more high-tech, more modern, more expert, over the decades while people have been focusing on all these dirty land wars in the Middle East and Africa and elsewhere. Japan is a major military nation.
Colin: Well, Japan faces China, and you talked earlier of China's military buildup. Yesterday I happened to be at a meeting with Kurt Campbell, who's just stepped down from being U.S. undersecretary for Asia. He'd just come from Japan but was cautiously positive about U.S.-China relations, saying America was on the brink of a new period in this relationship.
Robert: He was a former boss of mine at the Center for a New American Security in Washington. Kurt was a very, very active and dynamic assistant secretary of state for East Asian-Pacific affairs. U.S.-China relations is probably the most critical bilateral relationship on the planet. Because if the U.S. can get along with China -- China will never be a friend, it will always be a competitor -- but the aim of strategy has to be to keep it a competitor rather than a real serious rival in wartime or something of that sort. In other words, keep the U.S.-Chinese rivalry within bounds. And this has several aspects -- naval rivalry, cyber warfare rivalry, et cetera, et cetera. And we have a new Chinese leader, Xi Jinping. We have more and more tension in the East and South China seas over the last two or three years compared to the previous decade and decades before then. The U.S. really is at a turning point with China where the two nations really have to get together and keep this rivalry from going, you know, from escalating further.
Colin: Right. Well, Robert, to conclude, to come back to Abe and Japan's relationship with China -- the history is bad, today's optics are not good. What are the chances of the world's second and third largest economies improving their relationship?
Robert: It's going to take extremely deft American diplomacy to do that. And remember what we haven't talked about, what has to be factored into this, is North Korea. Because as I said, North Korea, one could argue, is a greater threat to Japan than it is to South Korea. The Japanese occupied the Korean Peninsula not just during World War II but from 1910 to 1945 -- 35 years. There's significant feelings of enmity between the Koreans and the Japanese, though the South Koreans have constructively moved away from that. The North Korean regime is what I'd call both a communist and a national fascist regime. And it's extremely unpredictable. In the past few weeks it's been acting out of pattern, I would say. In other words, it's becoming more belligerent than many of us would have suspected. It's trying to get more and more attention to itself by threatening more and more pulling out of the armistice agreement. This is a real threat to Japan. Especially as, if you're a Japanese strategist, you have to think that when North Korea acts aggressive, that cannot be divorced from Chinese strategy. Because while the Chinese have their own problems with North Korea as a somewhat unreliable ally, the Chinese can also benefit when North Korea ratchets up tension in North Asia.
Colin: Robert, we'll leave it there for now. Robert Kaplan, chief geopolitical analyst. That's Agenda for now. See you next time.
