Japan’s new militarism to counter rising China

Japan’s new militarism to counter rising China

While China frightens the region by building strategic airfields on artificial islands it has created in the South China Sea, its tourists clear out whole shelves in Japanese shops and thousands of Chinese girls hire kimonos for romantic holidays in Japan.

Japan faces the same China paradox its friend and ally Australia experiences, albeit a more intense version: its crucial main trading partner is also a possible security threat.

The Japanese see Beijing’s strategy of slowly extending its influence through the South China Sea as China slowly carving slices off a salami or peeling the leaves off a cabbage, progressively targeting weak spots.

Conscious of the impact on its economy, Japan is delighted to benefit from the process its calls “baku gai”, or explosive shopping, where Chinese visitors leave its stores clutching shopping dockets 1m long, laden with baby formula, cosmetics, Thermos flasks and other products.

But a Japanese fear of increasing Chinese military intrusions into its air and sea space is strengthening public support for a shift from strict pacifist policies to a closer alliance with the US and Australia.

The tense regional security situation was a major focus of talks during Foreign Minister Julie Bishop’s visit to Japan and China this week.

In Japan, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his senior ministers all stressed the importance of the growing strategic relationship between their country and Australia and the importance of Japan’s bid to build Australia’s new submarine fleet as the linchpin of that alliance. Both delegations declared the importance to trade of the new Trans-Pacific Partnership.

In Beijing, Bishop raised Australia’s serious concerns about the increasing militarization of the South China Sea and stressed its determination to keep open the sea lanes that carry more than 60 per cent of international freight.

Those fears were immediately reinforced by the release yesterday of satellite images showing that China has placed batteries of anti-aircraft missiles on Woody Island, part of the Paracel chain, which is occupied by Beijing but claimed by Taiwan and Vietnam.

Such deployments increase the risk of aircraft from nations including the US and Australia being fired on as they make “freedom of navigation” flights.

Long-time defense specialist Paul Dibb has warned repeatedly that effective mechanisms must be in place to prevent an accidental or deliberate clash escalating into warfare.

Concerns about the growing might of China and its assertive actions in the East China Sea and the South China Sea have shifted public opinion in Japan to a significant extent away from its strong determination to steer well clear of any military alliances other than its close defense relationship with the US. There’s a strong feeling in Japan that it cannot match China’s military expansion and an alliance with Australia as its most significant regional ally after the US is crucial. Hence its desire to build Australia’s submarine fleet. Subs are Japan’s most valued weapon and it is increasing the size of its own fleet to 22 boats. With 12 from Australia, that would make a formidable combined force to complement the US submarine fleet in the region.

This follows the investment of considerable political capital by Abe to change public opinion in Japan about military co-operation in the wider world, and growing alarm among Japanese people about Beijing’s intentions.

Australia is increasingly seen by many Japanese as potentially a close and dependable ally.

Japan and China have managed their relationship for many centuries and beyond the wariness of a much more powerful neighbor, there is in Japan an understanding of China’s concerns about encirclement by foreign powers that goes back to the Western occupation of China and the Opium Wars of the mid-19th century. That understanding does not override the growing concern in Japan about Chinese activities in the East and South China seas.

Beijing’s vague and confused explanations of what its ultimate intentions are in the South China Sea have not built confidence in the face of growing evidence that it is actively fortifying key positions across a vast area.

Fox News obtained the latest satellite images from a commercial company and says they show what appear to be HQ-9 surface-to-air missiles, which have a range of 125 miles (200 km). Defense sources in Canberra tell The Australian China has developed very effective missile systems.

Taiwan quickly confirmed the missile deployment.

As, the pictures emerged, US President Barack Obama called for the nations involved in South China Sea disputes to reduce tensions by stopping reclamation work, new construction and militarization of disputed areas.

China appears determined to control, by military force if necessary, some of the world’s busiest shipping lanes.

Fiery Cross Reef in the disputed Spratly Islands has been built up into an island complete with a 3000 m-long runway.

China’s President Xi Jinping raised hopes last year by declaring that China would not put weapons on its artificial islands.

Technically he has not gone back on his word because Woody Island is a real island — not an artificially constructed feature. China claims almost all of the South China Sea, an area through which an estimated $5 trillion of international trade passes every year. That includes the Middle Eastern oil that sustains the giant economies of China, South Korea and Japan. The Philippines, Malaysia, and Brunei also claim some of the hundreds of reefs and small islands in the sea.

A serious fear is that China will eventually claim rights to an air defense identification zone over the South China Sea, which would require air traffic to identify itself to the Chinese authorities.

Obama said this week the US would continue to fly, sail and operate wherever international law allowed. The US has several times challenged China’s claims to exclusive sovereignty over the islands by sailing naval ships within 12 nautical miles of the disputed islands, through what Beijing insists is its exclusive maritime territory. These freedom-of-navigation operations are intended to assert the right of free passage in international waters.

The Australian National University’s Rory Medcalf says the Woody Islands development is “sadly not surprising”, adding: “This will further militarize the tensions in the South China Sea

. “China seems to be putting missiles on a disputed South China Sea island while going slow on negotiating a code of conduct with ASEAN that would ban precisely this kind of thing. This is a sign that China does not take such diplomacy seriously.”

Australian surface warships and aircraft have made long-range patrols through the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean for 30 years and while they have not always been classified as freedom-of-navigation exercises, that is effectively what they are. The RAAF flights have been carried out from a base in Malaysia.

While not secret, the average Australian knew little about them until it emerged recently that the crew of a RAAF Orion was heard warning the Chinese navy that it was flying through a disputed area of the South China Sea.

Journalists from the BBC were aboard a chartered flight over the Spratly Archipelago, which China claims, when they heard the Orion broadcast a message to the People’s Liberation Army Navy.

The BBC says the Australians repeated the message several times, with no apparent response.

An ADF spokesman confirms the Orion was on a routine patrol, and The Australian understands that it did not fly over the artificial islands.

In October, the American destroyer USS Lassen passed close to one of the structures.

Australian warships have gone past them but not that close, though the RAN has prepared contingency plans to do that if ordered to do so by the government.

Kenji Wakamiya, Japan’s State Minister of Defense, tells The Australian China is very important to Japan, both countries had great responsibility to maintain peace and stability in the region, and Japan wanted to further strengthen ties.

The security situation must be seen in the context of the close economic relationship and diplomacy between the two countries, Wakamiya says, and Japan had been blessed in recent times with a surge of tourists from China who spent a lot on Japanese goods.

“That is a sign that individual Chinese citizens have great trust in Japanese-made goods,” Wakamiya says.

“But at the same time the activities that China is carrying out in the East China Sea and the South China Sea is to us is one-directional diplomacy, and the fact they are making artificial islands with aircraft runways is a concern.”

Also of concern is the big increase in military spending by Beijing and the lack of disclosure about how it spends the money, Wakamiya says. “We want China to be more transparent in its policy making and its actions, to be on the same ground as the rest of the international community.”

Wakamiya says it would take time to increase operational co-operation between the Australian and Japanese navies but the two nations had already worked together on peacekeeping and reconstruction operations in Iraq and now in South Sudan. A first step would be personnel exchanges and further military exercises to familiarise members of both nations’ militaries with each other’s operating procedures.

“That would get them on the same page in terms of strategy. Increased co-operation including personnel exchanges will surely contribute to strengthening security in the Asia-Pacific. We believe we will get there step by step.”

Australian, Japanese and US submarines could well find themselves monitoring Chinese naval activity off the submarine base on Hainan Island to build up a pattern of sound “signatures” to help identify the rapidly growing number of Chinese boats when they are encountered in the future — or off a North Korean port.

North Korea’s determination to build a hydrogen bomb small enough to fit a missile that can be carried by a submarine is adding to fears in Tokyo, Washington and Canberra. Though that is a long way from fruition, the prospect of a nuclear-armed North Korean submarine turning up far from its unpredictable homeland at some time in the future is a possibility that has to be planned for.

Source: The Australian.