By Prof. Swaran Singh
His five-nation tour saw all his hosts strongly reiterating commitment to building closer cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is winding down a six-day, five-nation tour that took him to France, Italy, the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States. These were the first such high-level interactions of 2023 among world leaders, triggering some interesting speculation and interpretations in world media.
Two weeks ago, Japan took over the presidency of the powerful Group of Seven industrialized nations and announced it would hold a summit in Prime Minister Kishida’s home constituency, Hiroshima, on May 19-21.
From this perspective, this tour saw Kishida reconnect with leaders of five of the G7 nations, with Germany being the only exception.
But that is not all. This hectic multi-nation visit is also being seen in the backdrop of Kishida’s domestic troubles precipitating multiple resignations. This included the ruling Liberal Democratic Party breaking ties with the influential Unification Church over the latter’s alleged links with assassination of former prime minister Shinzo Abe.
As a result, last month witnessed the Kishida cabinet’s approval ratings plummeting to an all-time low of 25%, tempting analysts to see the tour as an attempt at diverting attention.
Regional implications
But it is in terms of its regional implications that this tour could be seen as an inflection point. Prima facie, this hyperactive tour was goaded by Kishida’s need to seek endorsement from his allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization for the National Security Strategy and New Defense Strategy reports issued by Japan last month.
These two reports present the roadmap not just for doubling Japan’s military expenditure but also to add counterstrike capabilities to the so-called Self-Defense Forces (SDF).
This is expected to put an end to Japan’s decades-old debate on breaking away from its self-imposed commitment to keep its annual defense budget under 1% of gross domestic product.
Kishida proposes to take Japan’s defense budget within five years to more than 2% of GDP. This will not just put the country in the league of NATO nations but, given the size of Japan’s GDP, will make it the world’s third-largest defense spender after the United States and China.
The most transformative import of the above-mentioned two reports is Japan’s decision to add offensive capabilities to its “Self-Defense” Forces. In defiance of the war-renouncing Article 9 of its constitution, Japan now plans to build critical counterstrike capabilities. This will not just mark a historic breakaway from its past but could trigger a major arms race in the larger Indo-Pacific region.
Of course, Japan has its justifications for triggering such tectonic transformations.
Intensifying Japan-US alliance
Eleven months of war in Ukraine has seen Japan drift from being extremely cautious to becoming Russia’s strongest critic in Asia. Japan has had complicated relations with Moscow, Beijing and Pyongyang, including tension-ridden territorial disputes with Russia and China. The Kishida administration has become concerned with increasingly assertive behavior of these neighbors.
Besides Russian’s Ukraine war and China’s large military exercises in the Taiwan Strait following then-US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s Taiwan visit in August, the year 2022 saw North Korea launch more than 90 ballistic and cruise missiles. This has seen Kishida lately echoing US President Joe Biden’s concerns about China and North Korea, and especially joining his refrain on Moscow’s “unprovoked” invasion having not just regional but global implications.
On Wednesday, in the joint statement issued at end of their annual 2+2 meeting of defense and foreign ministers in Washington, the United States and Japan reiterated their shared commitment to “deter intensifying Chinese military threats in the East China Sea and around Taiwan,” to reorganize US Marine Corps units based in Okinawa, and to expand cooperation from outer space to cybersecurity to other sectors of advanced military technologies, including upgrading US weapons transfers to Japan.
In that light, Prime Minister Kishida – formerly Japan’s long-term foreign minister – was expected to obtain “a warm embrace” by President Biden in Washington on Friday regarding his new Defense and Security Strategy reports.
Such an endorsement by the United States is not just a message to Russia, China and North Korea but also to Kishida’s opponents back home as the Japanese Diet (parliament) begins a politically sensitive debate on paying for the proposed spike in this year’s defense budget.
Among others, Japan’s proposed defense budget already includes US$1.58 billion for US-made long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles and for developing modern radar-evading hypersonic missiles. This would empower Japan to strike across Asia.
Japan-UK defense pact
The other major highlight of Kishida’s five-nation tour was his signing in London of a Reciprocal Access Agreement. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called it “historic” as it allows the two countries’ armed forces to be deployed on each other’s territories, thereby further reinforcing the UK’s Indo-Pacific tilt.
For the United Kingdom, this marks an endorsement from Japan, which has been the oldest proponent of the Indo-Pacific paradigm and strongest advocate of a “free and open Indo-Pacific.”
The United Kingdom has lately come to be a powerful player in molding Indo-Pacific geopolitical trends. The March 2021 publication of its Integrated Review followed the US lead in identifying China’s expanding footprint as their shared challenge and pronounced why post-Brexit “Global Britain” needed to “engage with the Indo-Pacific more deeply for its own security.”
In September 2021, the UK was invited to join the AUKUS trilateral defense partnership for the Indo-Pacific that then-prime minister Boris Johnson had called a “new chapter” with “the first task of this partnership” being “to help Australia acquire a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines.”
Japan also signed a similar Reciprocal Access Agreement with Australia in January last year. This backdrop reveals the import of the UK now signing a new defense pact with Japan.
As for Japan, it seems all set to capitalize on such cultivation by its Western allies. Fumio Kishida, a resident of Hiroshima, author of Towards a World without Nuclear Weapons and perceived widely as “dove,” this drift presents itself as a demand of the times.
It also comes in line with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’ Zeitenwende address after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which he called his “turning point” to reverse decades of extreme caution in military matters as he proposed to take defense expenditure to 2% of German GDP.
Indo-Pacific revived
The prolonged Ukraine war has heightened Japan’s concerns about Western overstretch, making it suspicious of NATO members’ appreciation of its regional security challenges, thus hurtling it toward exploring self-help options. But even these novel self-help strategies required endorsements from its allies in NATO.
Against that backdrop, this five-nation tour by Kishida saw all his hosts strongly reiterating commitment to building closer cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region and redressing their shared concerns about China, North Korea and Russia.
Apart from all other specific issues in their deliberations, revival of their cooperation in the Indo-Pacific remained their common refrain, starting from Kishida’s first stop in Paris and his meetings with President Emmanuel Macron.
Likewise, in his meetings with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Rome also committed itself to working with Japan and the United Kingdom for a new fighter jet. In turn, Kishida also underlined how he saw that “the security of Europe and that of the Indo-Pacific are inseparable.”
The coming weeks will show how effective this external endorsement of Kishida can be in his dealings with his domestic detractors.
Originally published: Asia Times, January 13, 2023.
Posted in SIS Blog with the authorization of the author.
Swaran Singh is visiting professor at the University of British Columbia and professor of diplomacy and disarmament, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He is president of the Association of Asia Scholars; adjunct senior fellow at the Charhar Institute, Beijing; senior fellow, Institute for National Security Studies Sri Lanka, Colombo; and visiting professor, Research Institute for Indian Ocean Economies, Kunming