China is pushing Japan to take on a growing military role in Indo-Pacific

On the cover of Japan’s annual defence white paper released last week, a legendary 14th-century Samurai rides towards the viewer — a stark contrast with last year’s Mount Fuji and cherry blossoms.

The invocation of the famed warrior caste is no accident: Japan is putting stronger emphasis on defence and taking on a bigger role in regional security.

Front and centre is China, the giant neighbour on which Japan’s economy depends heavily but which the country’s politicians have also identified as its primary security threat.

“The steps China has taken in its regional security disputes — India, the South China Sea, Taiwan and the East China Sea — have put further fuel on a fire that was already burning,” says Bates Gill, a professor for Asia-Pacific security studies at Macquarie University.

Within the first five lines of the white paper, defence minister Nobuo Kishi accuses China of attempting to change the status quo in regional waters. The document also states that “stabilising the situation surrounding Taiwan is important for Japan’s security and the stability of the international community” — the latest of a recent string of high-profile mentions of the island which China claims as its territory and threatens to take by force. Last but not least, Tokyo stresses the need to focus on developing advanced technologies such as AI vital for the future of warfare and to protect them from China.

Japanese expressions of alarm about China are often drowned out in the global cacophony of concern over Beijing’s military expansion and assertive behaviour. But the white paper reflects what may be the largest shift in Tokyo’s security stance in more than 70 years.

Since its defeat in the second world war, Japan has lived under a constitution that renounces any use of military force. But in 2014, Shinzo Abe, then prime minister, reinterpreted the relevant article to allow military action even outside Japan proper for the purpose of what it calls ‘collective self defence’.

Since then — and boosted by reforms which streamline policymaking on security issues — Tokyo has taken a more active role in shaping regional security.

It was Abe, for example, who came up with the call for like-minded countries to protect freedom and security in the Indo-Pacific — a concept that has since become the backbone of the US’ strategy in the region. Tokyo has also taken a leading role in reviving the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) when the US’ retreat threatened to collapse the trade deal.

“Japan knows that it cannot ‘contain’ China, so it is trying to build a network of like-minded countries to show presence to protect rules-based order,” says Robert Ward, Japan Chair at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Japan has steadily increased its military engagement with friendly nations that share this goal. Earlier this year, Japanese, American and French troops held their first-ever joint drills on Japanese territory, simulating the defence of an island against enemy invasion in a scenario aimed at China.

The country is also negotiating a reciprocal access agreement with Australia to regulate visits of soldiers from the two countries to each other’s territories. According to experts, one of the goals is to allow Japanese forces to protect Australian military assets.

Tokyo is also helping to strengthen the capabilities of littoral states in south-east Asia to push back against China’s moves designed to enforce its expansive maritime claims in the disputed waters of the South China Sea. It has, for example, equipped Vietnam and the Philippines with patrol ships.

Still, experts believe that there are limits to the military component of Japan’s new prominence in regional security.

“The Japanese public continues to feel a profound discomfort with power projection, and fear of involvement and entanglement,” says Brad Glosserman, deputy director of the Centre for Rulemaking Strategies, a think-tank at Tama University. “Being the spear rather than the shield? Don’t go too far with that.”