Courcy's Future Threats - December 2013

Tensions between China and Japan are likely to keep increasing for the foreseeable future. The build-up of Japan’s military budget (along with stated plans for the future) is, of course, raising tensions in and of itself, but a corollary of that increase in military spending is a need for more manoeuvres.

In our sister publication, Courcy’s Intelligence Brief, we have already looked (and will continue to look) in depth at the delicate situation between Japan and China. Now, thanks to Japan’s setting out of its long term plans, it is possible to chart a likely trajectory for relations between these two Asian powers.

As we discussed in our 18 December issue of Courcy’s Intelligence Brief, Tokyo has approved three key documents: Japan’s first-ever National Security Strategy; the National Defence Program Outline; and the Mid-term Defence Plan. The National Security Strategy explains the context, while the other two provide the practical response. China reacted with predictable fury to the approval of the documents by the Japanese government, and (also predictably) publicly showed no understanding that Japan’s new strategy might be a reaction to its own actions.

Having looked at the newly agreed military budgets in Japan, a key to understanding what lies in store is to examine how these budgets will be spent. The raw figures are that, after a decade of declining military budgets, 2013 saw an increase of 0.8%. The new plans set out the intention to steadily increase military spending by 2.6% (once cost savings are accounted for) to 4,884.8 billion yen ($46.9 billion). Over the next five years this will mean a total spend of 23.97 trillion yen ($232bn, £142bn).

Tokyo intends to invest in anti-missile destroyers, submarines, 52 amphibious vehicles, surveillance drones, US fighter planes and 17 vertical take-off Boeing Osprey aircraft.

Some of the spending plans are laid out very precisely. Under the draft budget there are plans to buy four F-35 fighter jets for 68.3 billion yen and build a new destroyer for 72.9 billion yen. The budget also includes the purchase of three P-1 patrol aircraft for (59.4 billion yen), four SH-60K patrol helicopters for (24.2 billion yen) and the construction of a new 2,900-ton submarine (51.7 billion yen). A further 1.7 billion yen is set aside for the purchase of two sample amphibious vehicles to study their functional capabilities, and 1.5 billion yen for amphibious training for personnel.

With all this new equipment comes the need to train personnel, test the hardware, and drill new tactics.

Japan and the US have already engaged in joint drills in 2013, much to Beijing’s annoyance. In drills originally scheduled for mid-October, but delayed due to bad weather, for the first time the US MV-22 Osprey was involved in joint exercises.

Against a simulated war scenario the drill took place at the ground forces’ Aibano training ground in Shiga prefecture. Although according to Japan’s Kyodo News the two militaries were forced to put the drill on hold due to powerful typhoons. MV-22s flew in from the US Marine Corp’s Futenma air base to join the drill on 16 October.

Additional training was carried out in Kochi prefecture on 25 October, with troops from both sides joining to deal with a simulated massive earthquake in the Nankai trough, according to the Japanese military. MV-22s were used to conduct searches for victims and transport patients.

At a news conference on 24 September Japan’s Defense Ministry press secretary Masayoshi Tatsumi said it would be useful for both Japan and the US to use MV-22s to enhance joint operation capability.

China has objected to the manoeuvres (both recent exercises and any planned for the future). According to the English language China Daily, Wu Huaizhong, a researcher of Japanese foreign and defence policies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said the US-Japan defence alliance “is basing their so-called security on undermining the security of other stakeholders in the region”.

From 2014 onwards Tokyo and Washington plan to hold further drills outside Okinawa, where 23 US Osprey aircraft are currently stationed at Futenma, and Japan’s Defense Ministry plans to introduce its own Ospreys to its Self-Defense Forces (SDF) from 2015.

The Republic of Korea’s opposition to parts of Japan’s new strategy will provide little succour for China. Although Seoul has objected to Japan’s including of the Dokdo/Takeshima islands in its strategy, it appears to remain broadly aligned with the US-Japan strategies.

A joint US-Japan-Korea naval exercise (delayed by Typhoon Danas), involving the nuclear-powered USS George Washington aircraft carrier as well as Japanese and Korean naval ships took place in 2013, and there are no real signs that Korea will not take part in future exercises.

China’s hope that Korea could prove a counterweight to the US-Japan alliance are likely to be ill-founded, and instead Korea’s joining-in in future drills could add to Beijing’s fear that a circle of military forces are forming around it. After decades of bemoaning a supposed ‘contain China’ policy by other nations, Beijing is worried that it is finally happening.

A joint statement issued by Japan and the US sets out that the two countries will revise their defence cooperation guidelines by the end of 2014 to respond to the “increasingly severe situation in the Asia-Pacific region”.

The two powers have agreed to increase training outside of Okinawa, including on mainland Japan, so as to maintain and enhance the military deterrence. According to the joint statement, “[b]ilateral and multilateral exercises, both hosted by Japan and in areas outside Japan, have improved interoperability and sharpened [the US and Japan’s] ability to deter aggression, defend Japan and maintain regional peace and security.”

Washington and Tokyo have also agreed to deploy a second early-warning radar system in Kyoto prefecture in 2014 to supplement the existing X-band radar system in north Japan, with the aim of helping protect Japan against threats from the DPRK.

Particularly concerning to China are Japan’s plans to deploy new long-range surveillance drones in 2014 to help monitor the Senkaku islands (which China claims sovereignty over as the Diaoyu islands). Additionally, two or three drones will fly from a US base in Japanese territory.

Most worryingly of all for Beijing, in light if the Senkaku/Diaoyu dispute, are the plans for the formation of a new amphibious unit comparable to the US Marines, that could be tasked to retrieve islands captured by enemies. The amphibious vehicles and training mentioned above are intended for this unit.

Another signal of future military cooperation between the US and Japan was the dispatching of the US Navy’s P-8 anti-submarine aircraft to Japan at the end of 2013, the first deployment of these aircraft outside the US.

On a visit to Iwo Jima Japan’s defence chief, Itsunori Onodera, announced that Japan intends to build a communication monitoring base there as soon as possible to expand its surveillance activities to cover the Pacific Ocean off its east coast. Work on the design of the new installation is pegged to begin in 2014, and the facility is expected to be operational within three years. The facility will intercept wireless communication around the island, located east of Okinawa and about 800 miles (1,250 km) south of Tokyo.

As Japan’s domestic military capabilities are ramped up, and as its new defence technologies come on stream over the next few years, its military personnel will need to be trained on the equipment. A key part of Japan’s enhanced military strategy is the joint working with the US. All this means that there will be more and more military manoeuvres, both Japan-only exercises and joint drills, demonstrating the effectiveness of Japan’s increased military capability to China.

These drills are likely to increase in scale and frequency as capabilities continue to be enhanced, and tensions with Beijing are likely to increase accordingly. China’s military spending, already high, is likely to increase as well to keep pace with Japan’s ramping. Tokyo’s military spending will not overtake Beijing’s of course, but China will want to maintain its significant advantage.

The nature of Japan’s new spending means that its enhanced capabilities will be in place for much more than five years. The US Marine-style unit, for example, is likely to become a core part of the SDF, and Japan is effectively committing to funding it indefinitely. Similarly, for the increased spending on new aircraft to be worthwhile they have to be part of a broad strategy that is projected to be in place for decades, not just for five years. This is even more the case with its new submarine, and other ocean-going craft.

Given the long-term nature of the defence strategies to which Tokyo is now committed, Sino-Japanese tensions cannot truly decrease unless China is able to learn to live with the new reality, rather than flexing ever larger military muscles of its own.