Departing from isolationism: Japan’s emergence as a regional security actor
DEPARTING FROM ISOLATIONISM: JAPAN’S EMERGENCE AS A REGIONAL SECURITY ACTOR
WRITTEN BY LIONEL FATTON
30 May 2024
Japan’s release of new security documents in December 2022 has been depicted by pundits as a watershed in the country’s security policy. Some decisions enshrined in the documents — increasing the defence budget to 2 per cent of GDP by fiscal year 2027, acquiring counterstrike capabilities, and bolstering multi-domain capacities — are no doubt consequential. However, they are more adaptations of, rather than deviations from, past practices. Indeed, they contribute to reinforcing a defence posture which remains fixated on territorial defence and mostly dedicated to raising the costs of aggression against Japan.
Surprisingly overlooked by most analysts, given that they constitute such a substantial and arguably drastic evolution, is the fact that the 2022 documents set Japan on the path of becoming a potent regional security actor. The country no longer shies away from actively engaging in regional security dynamics and is departing from the relative isolationism that has characterised its security policy since 1945. This is due to an intensifying deterrence-entrapment dilemma: Tokyo needs to deepen its security cooperation with the United States (US) to maintain a robust deterrence posture vis-à-vis China, but doing so heightens the risk of entrapment in a Taiwan contingency. Consequently, Japan is intervening in cross-strait security dynamics to reduce the possibility of conflict, thereby lowering the probability of entrapment. Given the sensitivity of the Taiwan issue in Beijing, this growing regional involvement raises serious questions about Tokyo’s ability to keep a balanced approach towards China.
Japan the isolationist
Japan’s security policy has focused on territorial defence since its defeat in the Pacific War — striving to deter attacks on its territory while showing a strong reluctance to engage in regional security dynamics. The Self-Defence Forces (SDF), created in 1954, were solely dedicated to protecting Japanese territory and barred from overseas deployment. This isolationist stance was facilitated by the asymmetrical nature of the 1960 Treaty on Mutual Cooperation and Security: the US pledged to defend Japan and in exchange obtained the ability to use bases on Japanese territory to project military power and maintain “international peace and security in the Far East”. In other words, the US assumed responsibility for upholding the regional status quo, relieving Japan from this task and allowing the country to stick to an exclusively defence-oriented posture fixated on territorial defence.
Amid China’s growing belligerence and strained Sino-Taiwanese relations, Tokyo is trapped in an intensifying deterrence-entrapment dilemma. To solve it, Japan has resolved to become more engaged in regional security dynamics to reduce the risk of cross-strait conflict, thereby lowering the probability of entrapment.
After the end of the Cold War, Tokyo adapted this “spear and shield” alliance structure to a worsening security environment. Japan gradually expanded the roles of the SDF to show solidarity with the US and to strengthen the alliance’s deterrent effects. In 2015, for instance, the Guidelines for Japan-US Defence Cooperation recognised the “global nature” of the alliance and the need for cooperation “from peacetime to contingencies”. Despite this initiative which, alongside others such as the 2013 National Security Strategy (NSS), heralded a more active role for Japan in shaping the East Asian environment, Tokyo continued to refrain from engaging in regional security dynamics. Its cautious stance vis-à-vis the Taiwan Strait was a case in point in this regard.
Amid mounting threats to its national security, Tokyo used its limited resources to transform the SDF into a modern fighting force, intended to strengthen its exclusively defence-oriented posture. This resulted in the 2018 concept of the Multi-Domain Defence Force, designed to improve the SDF capabilities for cross-domain operations and deepen jointness between services beyond the traditional domains of warfare to cyberspace, the electromagnetic spectrum, and outer space. In line with this endeavour, the measures enshrined in the 2022 security documents aim primarily at reinforcing territorial defence.
Counterstrike, or the ability to retaliate against an opponent’s territory, has been regarded as a deviation from past practices. However, it constitutes an adaptation, although significant, of the exclusively defence-oriented posture of the SDF to a more severe security environment. Amid intensifying and diversifying missile threats and the resulting decline in the effectiveness of the Japanese missile defence system, counterstrike capabilities are dedicated to deterring attacks and, if deterrence fails and missiles are launched at Japan, preventing “the opponent’s further armed attacks”. Although they provide power projection capabilities the SDF had previously been denied, their operationalisation as incorporated into the 2022 NSS does not signal a radical shift. Counterstrike capabilities contribute to reinforcing a defence posture which remains fixated on territorial defence and is mostly dedicated to raising the costs of aggression against Japan.
The Taiwan Strait conundrum and departure from isolationism
The 2022 documents reflect a more substantial, and perhaps drastic, evolution in Japan’s security policy. The NSS intends to deter “contingencies and attempts to unilaterally change the status quo in Japan and its vicinity” while the attendant National Defence Strategy (NDS) ranks first the objective to “shape a security environment not accepting unilateral changes to the status quo by force”. In other words, Tokyo has finally come to terms with the need to depart from relative isolationism and actively intervene in regional security dynamics. Although the NSS and NDS do not explicitly mention Taiwan in this context, the situation in the strait is Japan’s focal point.
Indeed, starting at a summit between Prime Minister Suga Yoshihide and President Joe Biden in April 2021, Tokyo has repeatedly underscored “the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait”. Compared to past soft security initiatives, such as the 2016 Free and Open Indo-Pacific, Japan’s ongoing outward move leans on hard power tools and focuses on its immediate periphery, the Taiwan Strait in particular. As such, it ushers in the country’s emergence as a potent regional security actor. Another difference with prior initiatives lies in the fact that Tokyo’s current efforts to shape its security environment are not driven by a prime minister’s political agenda, but by national security imperatives. They are, consequently, more sustainable in the long run.
Japan today faces what I call a deterrence-entrapment dilemma. China’s economic growth and military modernisation have tilted the regional balance of power in its favour. Tokyo understands that bolstering its defence posture through greater investment in the SDF will not suffice to face a country now considered “an unprecedented and the greatest strategic challenge”. Therefore, Japan must simultaneously deepen its security cooperation with the US to maintain a robust deterrence posture. However, this heightens the risk for Japan of being entrapped in a Taiwan contingency. Indeed, as reflected by Tokyo and Washington’s recent pledge to move towards a more unified command and control framework, the SDF is increasingly integrated into the US’ first island chain and Taiwan’s defence strategy. In case of conflict in the Taiwan Strait, it is today “virtually impossible [for Japan] to avoid becoming involved either as a military target or as a military asset”.
Amid China’s growing belligerence and strained Sino-Taiwanese relations, Tokyo is trapped in an intensifying deterrence-entrapment dilemma. To solve it, Japan has resolved to become more engaged in regional security dynamics to reduce the risk of cross-strait conflict, thereby lowering the probability of entrapment. The objective is to blur China’s strategic calculus and discourage the latter from triggering military-diplomatic crises in the Taiwan Strait by mobilising hard power tools. One of these tools is the Japan-US alliance itself. The two countries have hastened preparation for a Taiwan contingency and become increasingly vocal about their intention to dissuade Beijing from coercing Taipei. Keen Edge 24, held in February, revolved around a Taiwan scenario and was the first joint exercise to explicitly identify China as the hypothetical enemy. The 2022 NDS states that the deepening cooperation between the two allies helps “deter not only the invasion of Japan, but also deter unilateral changes to the status quo” in its vicinity.
Reaching beyond the US to confuse the Chinese strategic calculus, Japan seeks to anchor other countries around the Taiwan Strait through regular military exercises. The Maritime SDF has been particularly active in this regard with 87 joint activities in 2022. To facilitate such exercises, apart from Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreements with Australia, Canada, Germany, France, India, the United Kingdom (UK) and the US, Tokyo aims at concluding Reciprocal Access Agreements (RAAs) with countries deemed important in shaping its regional environment. Japan signed RAAs with Australia and the UK in January 2022 and January 2023, respectively, and recently started negotiations with France and the Philippines. These efforts are bearing fruits: Tokyo, Washington, and London announced in April 2024 that they will conduct regular trilateral exercises in the Indo-Pacific from 2025.
Given its geographic location, the Philippines is a partner of choice when it comes to security dynamics in and around the Taiwan Strait. It is therefore no surprise that the country is among the first to benefit from Japan’s Official Security Assistance (OSA), a new instrument intended to enhance the “deterrence capabilities of like-minded countries to prevent unilateral attempts to change the status quo”. Besides its OSA, Tokyo has been a strong proponent of the Japan-Philippines-US Trilateral Defence Policy Dialogue. First held virtually in September 2022, the dialogue was elevated to national security advisers in June 2023, the same month as the first exercise between their coast guards. The first summit between the leaders of the three countries took place in April 2024, during which they pledged deeper security cooperation and affirmed “the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait”. The trilateral is now gradually moving towards a quadrilateral. The defence ministers of Japan, the Philippines, the US, and Australia met in May 2024 and expressed “serious concern” over China’s behaviour in the South China Sea, a few weeks after the four countries conducted their first joint naval patrol in the area.
Although Japan has not taken the lead in all of the above-mentioned activities and initiatives, the country showing no reluctance to join them demonstrates how far and quickly it has departed from relative isolationism. Such far-reaching interventions in regional security dynamics were difficult to imagine a decade ago.
Storm ahead in Sino-Japanese relations
The deterrence-entrapment dilemma leaves Japan with little choice but to intervene in security dynamics around Taiwan, which Beijing considers the core of its core interests. This raises serious questions about the sustainability of Tokyo’s traditional approach towards China.
Based on the recognition that armed conflicts do not start solely because a country foresees the possibility of achieving its objectives by force, but also because of dissatisfaction with the status quo, Japan has since the early 1970s adopted a balanced China policy. This approach seeks to raise the costs of China’s aggression against Japan while simultaneously enhancing the attractiveness of the status quo for Beijing. A deterrence pillar, composed of the alliance with the US and the SDF, is paired with another pillar of proactively engaging with China on the economic and security fronts. Japan’s deepening involvement in security dynamics in and around the Taiwan Strait skews its China policy towards deterrence and against engagement, creating a disequilibrium with the potential to jeopardise the bilateral relationship. Recent comments by Beijing about Japan being a “two-faced” country are not empty words.
Tokyo must recalibrate its China policy and balance its growing focus on regional deterrence by devising a proactive regional diplomatic outreach. The status quo in the Taiwan Strait is increasingly fragile amid the hardening of political positions in Beijing and Taipei, and as the balance of power has tilted decisively in China’s favour. While deterring Chinese revisionist moves with the help of the US and other partners, Tokyo ought to promote discussions between the two sides of the strait. A new modus vivendi must urgently be found. Of course, Beijing and to a lesser extent Taipei might not be willing, and ready, to engage in talks. But Japan would be well advised to give it a try. The country successfully played this role of stabiliser in the past with the so-called “Japan formula”, which satisfied China’s quest for diplomatic recognition while maintaining unofficial exchanges between Taiwan and Japan.
Meanwhile, Tokyo must strive to forestall crisis-triggering behaviours from the US over Taiwan. More importantly, it must isolate its diplomatic outreach from American influence. Given the political atmosphere in Washington, not doing so would bias its diplomacy and result in its initiatives being regarded as deceptive by China. Japan must resist the polarisation generated by the intensifying Sino-American strategic competition to position itself as a broker. Otherwise, one of the last bridges running over the East Asian fault line would collapse.
DISCLAIMER: All views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent that of the 9DASHLINE.com platform.
Author biography
Dr Lionel Fatton is an Assistant Professor of International Relations and Program Head of the BA in IR at Webster Geneva Campus and a Research Collaborator at the Research Institute for the History of Global Arms Transfer, Meiji University. His latest book, Japan’s Rush to the Pacific War: The Institutional Roots of Overbalancing, was published in 2023 by Palgrave Macmillan. Image credit: Wikimedia Commons/Government of Japan.