Japan becoming the US Lap Dog of the Far East, unsettling the Chinese Dragon

Japan becoming the US Lap Dog of the Far East, unsettling the Chinese Dragon

  by

Kosuke Takahashi
(Kosuke Takahashi is a former staff writer at the Asahi Shimbun and is currently a freelance correspondent based in Tokyo. He can be contacted at letters@kosuke.net. )

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24 February 2005

Read here full article "Japan to become 'Britain of the Far East'" by Kosuke Takahashi

Japan and the United States agreed last weekend in Washington to strengthen security and defense cooperation by setting "common strategic objectives" to deal with new threats such as terrorism and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

The agreement spelled out for the first time a common strategic objective to maintain peace in the Taiwan Strait - to China's anger and great embarrassment.

The accord between the United States and Japan calling for strengthened bilateral military and security ties marks the evolution of the US-Japan relationship and signals a critical historic phase in the early 21st century.

The US global military transformation is transforming Japan into a reliable and unswerving "Britain of the Far East".

Britain is the United States' closest ally in the Western Hemisphere.

The US wants Japan to become the Asian equivalent of the United Kingdom in the Eastern Hemisphere.

Many analysts have pointed out Japan is becoming a linchpin, a key security outpost, in the United States' defense posture in the Asia-Pacific region.

Right-leaning Japanese politicians and military planners in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), led by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, want Japan to assume a more assertive role on the world stage and change its low profile in international politics by shedding its strong pacifism enshrined in the post-World War II US-imposed constitution in the future.

They view the current constitution with its limits on combat overseas as anachronistic, unrealistic and irresponsible in the current turbulent world.

For ordinary Japanese, the issue of the consolidation and reduction of US military bases in Japan, especially in Okinawa, is more important than anything else.

Japanese Defense Agency director general Yoshinori Ono agreed on a US proposal for advancing joint research on a theater missile defense (TMD) system to the development stage in fiscal 2006, potentially targeting North Korea's Nodong and Daepodong missiles as well as China's Dong Feng missiles.

Many analysts have pointed out that this missile defense system will become the actual bulwark of the Japan-US security alliance in the future.

China was upset by the statement, which also advocated resolving the Taiwan Strait conflict through peaceful dialogue and asked Beijing to be more "transparent" in military terms.

China quickly criticized the US and Japan for meddling in its internal security affairs relating to Taiwan, which it considers part of China.

Calling the US-Japan security alliance "a bilateral scheme spawned during the Cold War period", Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan said,

"The Chinese government and Chinese people firmly oppose the US-Japan statement on the Taiwan issue, which concerns China's sovereignty, territorial integrity and national security."

Meanwhile, Taiwan cautiously welcomed the statement from the US and Japan that identified maintaining peace in the Taiwan Strait as a common security objective.

Washington officials appear to have increasingly longed for closer defense relations with Japan that mirror the US-British special relationship in the past years, especially when Tokyo sent more than 1,000 Self-Defense Forces (SDF) personnel, mostly ground forces, to Iraq.

From their perspective, Britain is the United States' closest ally in Europe and Japan is its closest ally in Asia.

But unlike Britain, Japan still cannot fully be involved in US military operations.

Article 9 of the Japanese constitution prohibits the use of force as a means of settling international disputes, and the SDF is authorized to fight only if Japan itself is invaded, and then only on Japanese territory or in the surrounding sea and air.

For this reason, Japanese troops were deployed to Samawah, a southern Iraqi city, which the Japanese government claims as non-combat zone, strictly on a "humanitarian" mission.

The 2003 Special Measures Law stipulates that the SDF can only be sent to areas where hostilities are not under way. To send troops into a combat zone would violate this law.

Washington has urged Tokyo to amend Article 9 and to authorize the right to collective self-defense. (Japan's current official stance is that it has this right, but cannot invoke it under the current constitution.)

Instructed by Koizumi, his LDP is currently mapping out a blueprint for amending the constitution by next November, when the party will mark the 50th anniversary of its founding. The LDP plans to release its constitutional amendment draft at that time.

This idea of transforming Japan into "Britain of the Far East" is nothing new.

Richard Armitage, the former US deputy secretary of state, who has extensive knowledge of Japan, once expressed this idea in a special report for the Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University (in Washington, DC): This report has since been commonly known as the Armitage Report, referring to Japan as the "Britain of the Far East".

Many senior officials have adopted that concept and used the expression.

Japanese hawks and some hardline Japanese military planners and politicians do not find this idea offensive, or even distasteful. This could lead to realizing their long-cherished wish to amend the constitution.

Although this is little known among foreign observers, the LDP's founding charter at the birth of the party in 1955 includes the "establishment of Japan's own constitution" as the party's basic policy.

Koizumi himself once said,

"The founding spirit of the LDP was to establish Japan's own constitution ... After 50 years, it's about time for the LDP to consider how to amend the constitution and come up with an idea to raise national debate on the issue."

By amending the constitution, they believe Japan will return to being a "normal" country again with the exercise of the right of collective self-defense and the full engagement in collective security arrangements such as those in the United Nations.

They believe this also will mean the eventual removal of US troops from Japanese territory in the long term - a goal the LDP set forth in its founding policy statement of 1955, although at this time most conservative politicians recognize the strategic importance of having some local US military presence.

The joint statement is just the beginning of Japan's new military posture and could mean that Japan will become much more closely aligned with and even involved in America's global strategies in the "war against terrorism".

It holds major implications for Japan's future, including the amendment of Article 9 of its pacifist constitution in the coming years. The US drafted the current pacifist constitution, but now wants to scrap those pacifism provisions and urge combat by Japan if necessary.

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