Pacifist no more?

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: It’s Thursday, the 3rd of February, 2022. You’re listening to WORLD Radio and we’re glad you’ve joined us today. Good morning, I’m Myrna Brown.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. First up on The World and Everything in It: Japan’s military machine.

Ever since the end of World War II, Japan has relied on the United States for almost all of its national defense. But over the past decade or so, that’s started to change.

WORLD’s Josh Schumacher explains why.

AUDIO: [Sound of tanks firing]

JOSH SCHUMACHER, REPORTER: In early December, Japan’s Ground Self-Defence Force held its annual military training exercises. Battle tank regiments shot at each other across open ranges. And these live fire matches could soon get a lot bigger.

This year, Japan’s defence ministry has asked for nearly $7 billion dollars in additional funds to spend on military equipment. That’s a significant increase in a country that has spent the last 75 years avoiding armed conflict.

FUMIO: [Speaking Japanese]

But Prime Minister Fumio Kishida says Japan needs to beef up its defenses and increase its capability to attack enemy bases amid rising threats from North Korea and China.

Zack Cooper is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. He says, for a long time, Japan spent only about 1 percent of its gross domestic product on defense.

But the country’s dominant political party, the LDP, now wants to double that number to at least 2 percent.

COOPER: Let's be honest, though, that they're not there now. They're not going to be there for quite some time. But we are seeing something like 7, 8, 9 percent growth in defense spending year on year, which for Japan is actually quite significant.

Japan’s increased interest in self-defense started about 10 years ago amid a dispute with China over the Senkaku Islands.

But, it’s got a long way to go to rebuild a military apparatus dismantled after World War II. And it’s not just about spending.

Bruce Klingner is a former U.S. intelligence officer who’s now a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation. He says the pacifist constitution the United States helped write for Japan after World War II effectively requires the country to renounce war as a foreign policy tool.

KLINGNER: For Japan, they saw it in a way as a pretty good deal. There was a policy called the Yoshida doctrine where it was sort of, Japan, would focus on making money improving its economy and leave its defense to the U.S.

Klingner uses the analogy of shopkeepers and a neighborhood policeman to explain how this policy has played into regional dynamics.

KLINGNER: So they could be sort of the shopkeeper in the neighborhood, and they wouldn't, you know, they would leave the the defense to the to the U.S. as the neighborhood's policeman.

But now, China has put Japan’s “shop” in jeopardy.

KLINGNER: So it's, you know, if you want to think of a neighborhood or a, you know, an old wild west town where, you know, Black Bart and his gang have come into, you know, Tombstone and throwing their weight around…

Initially, things weren’t that bad. And, as a result, the neighborhood basically chose to ignore China’s increasing aggression.

But now, Klingner says, that’s no longer a viable option.

KLINGNER: Well, as things get worse and worse. Well, now, it's not just the sheriff, the U.S., who's saying we need to do things. It's now the townspeople saying, ‘Yeah, you're right, this is getting so bad, that I do need to go out of my comfort zone.’

A significant portion of Japan’s concern involves China’s increasing aggression toward Taiwan.

Zack Cooper says a Taiwan controlled by China presents a significant strategic threat to Japan.

COOPER: If you look at the map, you know, Japan lives in a pretty tough neighborhood…

To the North, a nuclear-armed Russia. To the west? Nuclear-armed North Korea. Further to the south and west, China, with its own nuclear arsenal.

Cooper says that makes Taiwan an important strategic ally.

COOPER: Japan would be really hard to defend, if it couldn't rely on the fact that it's hard for Chinese ships to sail out into the Pacific Ocean without having to pass through a choke point that is controlled by either Japan, or the Philippines, or between the two of them in Taiwan. And these are choke points that the United States and its allies and partners can watch pretty closely…

These chokepoints created by Taiwan and the surrounding islands make Japanese security easier to manage.

COOPER: I think one concern is that if Taiwan were held by China, and used as a staging point, that would be much more difficult for Japan to do—it would have to look not just to the west, but also to the east and to the south. And this would be really, really challenging operationally.

But not everyone in the region shares Japan’s concern. Or as Bruce Klingner puts it, some countries in the region aren’t all that excited about standing up to “Black Bart” and his gang.

KLINGNER: Some are saying, Well, look, you know, if it's the sheriff versus the bad guy, I don't want to take sides there, because I could get hurt.

Zack Cooper says Japan has tried to shore up its defenses by building trade deals and national security networks with its neighbors in the region.

COOPER: The Japanese relationships with China, North Korea and South Korea are tense. But Japan has very good relationships in Southeast Asia. And if you look at polling data, many Southeast Asian countries have far more faith in Japan than they do in the United States, or the European Union or China…

In other words, Japan has turned into something of a leader in the region.

COOPER: So whether that's in Southeast Asia, whether it's with Australia and India through the quadrilateral grouping that they all have, we're now seeing Japan take on actually a leadership role as a convener to try and hold the region together.

And regional leadership almost always requires a strong military to back it up.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Josh Schumacher.

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