What Japan is doing is
clear. Why it is doing it is much more complex.
Is Japan striving for military “normalcy,” hedging against uncertainty,
or balancing a more assertive China? Under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Japan
has increased defense spending, reinterpreted Article Nine of its once-pacifist
constitution, strengthened its alliance with the United States, relaxed
constraints on its defense industry, and increased its security ties in
Southeast Asia. It has even expressed interest in using its military resources
to conduct maritime patrols in the South China
Sea, where it has no direct stake in extant territorial disputes.
Why? What motivates all these moves in the defense domain, and how “on
trend” is it with the rest of the region?
The
answer matters for our ability to accurately generalize about the character of
the region, but it matters even more for how we understand Japan’s trajectory
as a military power in Asia. Any debate about the sustainability of the
relative peace Asia has known for the past generation depends on what we are
willing to assume about the region’s largest military powers.
A number
of Asia scholars (this author included) have observed that Asian
states are neither balancing against nor bandwagoning with a rising China, but
instead pursuing hedging strategies.
The evidence is there, whether diversifying military ties in the region,
building up military capacity without aiming it at anyone in particular, or
simultaneously moving closer to the United States (on security issues) and
China (on economic issues).
There are
several practical implications that logically follow from this characterization
of the region. It suggests, for one, that the United States should not take its
centrality in the region for granted; we cannot expect the region — or even
allies — to simply go along with U.S. preferences in an environment where
alternatives may exist. It also means smaller states are unlikely to gleefully
embrace Chinese hegemony anytime soon, and if there is anything inherently
“Asian” about Asian international relations (as some scholars argue), it is not
necessarily that China has a rightful place at the center of regional
life. But if hedging is as pervasive as many claim, it also implies that
the most pessimistic expectations about Asia’s fate — that China is hell bent
on expansionism or that
the region is “ripe for rivalry” —
are not necessarily accurate either, at least not according to the judgment of
the region’s middle powers.
Perhaps
most importantly, a region of hedgers gives us a baseline for what counts as
“normal” in contemporary Asian security. If Japan is adopting a hedging posture
toward the region or China, then we might judge Japan’s foreign and defense
policy shifts as “normal” for the time being. If not, then either Japan is
unique among states in the region for choosing to balance China, or it is at
the vanguard of a regional shift away from hedging and fuzzy geopolitical
alignments in favor of firmer coalitions of balancing states.
Evidence
of Japanese security behavior to date paints a complex picture. Japan’s
increased defense spending and military modernization can be explained as a
reaction to increased Chinese assertiveness, as can a strengthened alliance
with the United States; both represent classical forms of internal and external
balancing. More difficult to explain in terms of balancing is Japan’s growing
defense ties in the region with India, Australia, and ASEAN, and its hints
about being willing to conduct patrols in Southeast Asia. These moves fit
better with a hedging explanation, which would place it more in alignment with
“normal” regional foreign and defense policy behavior for now.
In some
respects it does appear that Japan is trying to become a “normal” military,
while in other respects it seems to be balancing China. Both can be true,
though that makes parsing reality — and predicting the likelihood of continued
regional stability — more difficult. Whatever its motivations, it seems that
Japan is no longer passing the buck to
the United States or the international community to provide for its security.
U.S. voices critical of Japanese
foreign policy for not contributing enough to alliance or regional security
have long awaited this moment. But the causes of Japan’s decision to cease
buck-passing — and the implications they harbor for regional stability — may
not be so welcome. The Diplomat
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