Changes to Japan-US defense cooperation
- By Chen Yan
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E-mail China.org.cn, October 14, 2014
In the contemporary world where intelligence rules all, space and cyberspace are more important than ever. Cutting-edge technologies in the two areas, including satellites and submarine observation sites, are able to calculate the number of rivals' airplanes and ships and map out the needed response. Thus, the two countries' cooperation in space and cyberspace has an actual combat purpose.
Classified information leaked by former U.S. NSA contractor Edward Snowden also reveals that the U.S. is the world's largest spy and cyberspace attacker. By stepping up their cooperation, Japan and the U.S. will be able to collect intelligence in peacetime and launch preemptive actions when wars begin.
How much threat do the revisions pose to China?
Though the Japanese media has repeatedly emphasized the need to contain China through the Japan-U.S. alliance, Japan cannot afford a showdown with China given its ever-weakening economic prowess, rapidly aging population, and insufficient military budget (which has been trimmed since 1998 and only slightly increased since Shinzo Abe assumed power).
When Japan launched a war against China 120 years ago, it was the Japanese media and diplomats who called for military actions. These days, media organizations like Sankei Shimbun continue with similar rhetoric, and hard line remarks were also made at a two-plus-two meeting last year between the defense and foreign secretaries of both the U.S. and Japan. One should not be surprised by the hawkish stance of some Japanese media and diplomats.
But despite the belligerence of media outlets like Sankei Shimbun, there are also some liberal media organizations like Asahi Shimbun. Though their influence is waning, there are indeed a large proportion of Japanese who are keen to maintain peace.
The Japanese self-defense forces are willing to defend their own territory, but they are very unlikely to "accidently" injure civilians as their U.S. counterparts did in Vietnam and Iraq under the pretexts of anti-communism and counterterrorism. According to Shinzo Abe, there are nearly 10,000 Japanese peace-keeping troops. But an editorial board member of the Tokyo Shimbun suggests that the suicide rate among Japanese soldiers returned from Iraq is 345.5 per 100,000, ten times the rate among average Japanese.
Japan also has strict regulations on the use of weapons. Though Abe keeps pushing to revise the laws on using weapons, no revision has yet been made.
It is therefore improbable that either Japanese soldiers or ordinary people will see themselves fighting alongside the U.S. globally.
Today's Japan needs confidence more than ever. Such confidence does not spring from serving as the world's police as the U.S. does, but from standing alongside the world's police. A recent survey shows that 93 percent of Japanese harbor unfavorable feelings towards China. The media plays up the China threat, and anti-China sentiment needs to be refueled by new China threats. The more serious the China threat sounds, the more prominent the facts that Japan is diffident and its economy is contracting become.
The revisions to the guidelines for Japan-U.S. defense cooperation will provide new artillery to media organizations that hype military antagonism between China and Japan, but it is the Japanese economy that will eventually suffer.
The author is CEO of ribenchan.com and also a specialist studying Japanese enterprises.
The article was translated by Zhang Lulu. Its original version was published in Chinese.
Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.
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