Japan starts to shift away from pacifist stance over fears about North Korean and Chinese activities

Editor’s Note: Center Senior Fellow Grant Newsham was quoted in this piece by the South China Morning Post

Japan is calibrating its traditionally pacifist defence policy towards a more offensive one in response to North Korea and China’s activities.

In recent months the government has discussed ways of conducting missile counter-strikes to deter or respond to any attack, with further talks planned, Kyodo News reported last week.

The closed-door discussions came amid a broader shift in the country, with policymakers and the political leadership rethinking its military abilities.

On Monday, Defence Minister Nobuo Kishi said his ministry would consider requesting a larger budget for the next financial year to “drastically” increase its ability to deal with China’s intensifying military assertiveness and North Korea’s renewed missile and nuclear threats.

And late last month, Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told a graduation ceremony for the country’s defence academy that he would not rule out fundamental changes to defence policy, according to The Straits Times.

Kyodo reported that Japan was considering making changes to its security strategy this year, including an overhaul of the National Security Strategy, which outlines its national interests and objectives.

It currently favours engagement with China saying: “Japan will continue to encourage China to play a responsible and constructive role for the sake of regional peace, stability and prosperity.”

Jon Grevatt, an analyst focusing on Asia-Pacific defence for defence intelligence group Janes, said Japan’s intentions marked a slight shift from the pacifist policies imposed after its defeat in the Second World War.

“Japan traditionally is a pacifist country, that means Japan only develops weapons that can defend itself from many attacks. But counterattack talks about something slightly more offensive, it’s a slightly different posture compared to Japan’s posture in the past,” Grevatt said.

“But I don’t think it stands on its own … I think what’s happening in Japan is responding to the growing threat in northeast Asia, which includes both North Korea, China and Russia. So Japan feels the need to deter any attack through advancing counterstrike capabilities.”

China and Japan have territorial disputes over the Diaoyu Islands, which are called the Senkaku Islands by the Japanese. Both China and Japan have ramped up coastguard patrols near the disputed islands in recent years.

On March 24, North Korea test-fired an intercontinental ballistic missile for the first time since November 2017. The missile landed in waters within Japan’s exclusive economic zone, prompting the deputy defence minister Makoto Oniki to call it “a serious threat to our country’s security”.

There is also an ongoing dispute with Russia over the Kuril Islands, which the Soviet Union seized at the end of the Second World War, but Tokyo does not consider that a security threat.

Grant Newsham, a senior research fellow at the Japan Forum for Strategic Studies, said: “Most countries will be pleased that Japan, which is solidly linked to the United States, is developing a more potent military capability to help ward off – and perhaps deter – Chinese aggression and intimidation.”

But he added: “It will be some time before Japan actually has so-called counterstrike capabilities. And even then they will be rather limited.”

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