[But the primary driver is Abe’s conviction that Japan, despite a pacifist constitution and culture, and the protection afforded by its alliance with the United States, needs to take its defense more seriously, experts said. Nevertheless, the move is already under fire, with critics saying it stirs up memories of Japan’s militaristic past.]
By
Simon Denyer and Akiko Kashiwagi
In this Dec. 6, 2016,
photo, a Japanese military helicopter prepares to land on the
flight deck of the
destroyer Izumo of Japan's Maritime Self-Defense
Force. (Eugene
Hoshiko/AP)
|
TOKYO — Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe
plans to give his island nation what effectively is its first aircraft carrier
since World War II and will announce plans to purchase dozens of U.S.-made F-35
fighter jets as he grapples with a growing threat from China, according to
defense guidelines and media reports.
The plans, constituting a major review of
Japan’s defense strategy, were approved by a committee of the ruling coalition
Tuesday and will be presented to the cabinet for approval next week.
Japan will announce plans to buy 40 to 50
F-35s over the next five years but may ultimately purchase 100 planes, media
reports said. That will have the added benefit of mollifying President Trump,
who has complained about the U.S. trade deficit with Japan as well as the cost
of keeping tens of thousands of U.S. troops here.
But the primary driver is Abe’s conviction
that Japan, despite a pacifist constitution and culture, and the protection
afforded by its alliance with the United States, needs to take its defense more
seriously, experts said. Nevertheless, the move is already under fire, with
critics saying it stirs up memories of Japan’s militaristic past.
“The most important responsibility of the
government is to protect the people and their peaceful lives,” Abe told a panel
of national security experts Tuesday.
“Under the drastically changing security
environment, in order to duly fulfill this responsibility, we have to
fundamentally strengthen our preparedness to protect the people’s lives, property,
territorial waters and airspace on our own.”
Abe talked of reforming “at a speed
fundamentally different from before,” but experts say he actually is moving
cautiously, mindful of widespread popular mistrust of anything that resembles
militarization after the trauma of Japan’s defeat and ruin in World War II,
when the country operated the largest carrier fleet in the world.
The defense guidelines said Japan wanted to
build a fighter lineup including short takeoff and vertical landing (STOVL)
aircraft and, “in case of need, will take necessary measures that would enable
STOVL to operate from the ships currently owned.”
That means buying the B-type F-35s that can
take off vertically and would be able to operate on short runways, former
defense minister Itsunori Onodera said in an interview.
Japan will also strengthen the deck of the
Izumo, a flat-top ship that already carries helicopters, so that it can
withstand the heat generated by F-35Bs when they take off and land, he said.
But Onodera, who played a lead role in drafting
the plans before leaving office in October, said Japan would stop short of
refitting the ship to become a true aircraft carrier.
“That is not to operate Izumo as an aircraft
carrier, but rather to refit it to make it possible for Type B [F-35s] to land
and take off,” he said. “The idea is to make it responsive to various
situations, including a case of accident or a sudden need for refueling. As you
know, it would require a significant redesigning to make it operate as an
aircraft carrier. That’s not what we are thinking about.”
Indeed, the Ministry of Defense insists that
the two Izumo-class ships in the fleet will not be carriers but “multipurpose
escort ships.”
But that has not stopped criticism from
within Japan and from its rival China.
In an editorial, the Asahi Shimbun argued
that Abe was “crossing a red line,” a move it called unacceptable.
“By introducing an aircraft carrier, Japan
could make itself look more enthusiastic about a military buildup than it
actually is,” it said. Countering China’s military rise will not be easy, it
argued, but Japan needs a well-thought-out plan “that will not trigger a futile
arms race in the region.”
Predictably, China’s nationalist Global Times
newspaper also was critical, arguing last month that “an aggressive move like
this may drive the country to repeat its militaristic history.”
But Japan’s conservative Sankei newspaper
argued that the new guidelines did not go far enough, and it recommended that
the country adopt significantly higher defense budgets and develop the
capability to attack enemy bases as a form of “punitive retaliatory
deterrence.”
In an op-ed, Michael Green of the Center for
Strategic and International Studies and Jeffrey Hornung of the Rand Corp. also
argued that Abe’s plans might not be ambitious enough, given the threats from
China and North Korea and the domestic challenges, including declining
recruitment and a growing shortage of military personnel in a country whose
population is shrinking.
Among other steps, they recommend that Japan
raise defense spending from its current 1 percent of gross domestic product
toward the NATO target of 2 percent.
Japan’s constitution renounces war and the
threat or use of force as a means of settling international disputes, although
Abe wants to revise the constitution to legitimize the defensive role of
Japan’s military, known as the Self-Defense Forces.
During last year’s tension with North Korea,
Abe’s government also decided to buy two Aegis Ashore ballistic missile defense
units from the United States, another groundbreaking step that was
controversial here.
The refitting of the Izumo is designed to
help Japan defend its 6,852 islands, which stretch over nearly 2,000 miles from
southwest to northeast. A constant source of tension is the Senkaku islands,
controlled by Japan but also claimed by China, which refers to them as the
Diaoyu islands.
The 814-f00t Izumo, with a full-load
displacement of 27,000 metric tons, is primarily designed for anti-submarine
warfare. It is much smaller than the aircraft carriers operated by the U.S.
Navy, which can reach up to 100,000 metric tons.
“You can debate how much additional
power-projection capability that gives you, but nothing signals political
resolve like a carrier, which is exactly why the Chinese have two and are
building a third and why we have multiple strike groups that we can sail around
the world,” said Richard Fontaine, president of the Center for a New American
Security.
Although China and North Korea are the main
threats facing Japan, Abe has also had to contend with a U.S. president who
complains about the “massive” trade deficit the United States is running with
Japan and the cost of the U.S. troop deployment here.
But before meeting Abe in Buenos Aires last
month, Trump acknowledged that the deficit was decreasing and added: “Japan is
buying large amounts of our fighter jets, our F-35s and others, and we
appreciate it very much.”
Many experts say Abe has deftly managed a
difficult relationship with Trump, including by reminding him that Japan pays a
large share of the cost of the U.S. deployment.
But not everyone in Japan is so enthusiastic
about the rising share of weapons purchases coming from the United States.
In another article, the Asahi Shimbun argued
that pressure to “buy American” is undermining Japan’s defense industry and its
plans to develop its own stealth fighter.
Others expressed similar concerns.
“Military equipment is falling from the sky
as if the United States is forcing us to buy and use it,” journalist and
national security expert Satoshi Tomisaka wrote in Bunshun Online.
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