Aircraft take off from a US Marine Corps base in Futenma. The challenge posed by China is “unprecedented”, Japan said in its latest defence white paper. Photo: AFP
Japan labelled China its “greatest strategic challenge” in a recent defence white paper, and though analysts say Tokyo’s hardening position is “clearly a concern for Southeast Asia” they note that “behind closed doors” regional elites likely understand the approach.
The challenge posed by China is “unprecedented”, Japan said in the annual paper released on July 28, pointing to Beijing’s external stance, military activities and other acts that it said had become a serious concern. In response, Chinese defence ministry spokesman Tan Kefei slammed the “erroneous” paper, saying Tokyo had “crudely” interfered in Beijing’s internal affairs and stirred regional tensions.
Japan’s white paper also underscored the “imminent threat” posed by North Korea and noted that Russia’s military activities in the region, alongside its strategic coordination with China, were of “strong security concern”.
“The region knows that Japan’s strategic posture toward China is getting firmer than before, and this is clearly a concern for Southeast Asia,” said Kei Koga, an associate professor of public policy and global affairs at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has taken a less hawkish approach to defence and security than his predecessor Shinzo Abe, analysts say. Photo: AP
Koga said Japan had been closely communicating with member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations on its defence and security posture and was looking to mitigate any confrontation through multilateral engagement.
This approach has spanned discussions at the Asean Regional Forum, as well as other Asean-led gatherings that included China, South Korea, Australia, India, New Zealand, Russia and the United States as dialogue partners, he said.
“Tokyo is mindful of the negative repercussions of expanding its security role in the region too fast,” said Bhubhindar Singh, an associate professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) in Singapore whose main research focus is Japan’s security policy.
Singh said Southeast Asian states had not raised fresh concerns about Tokyo’s latest white paper as it expressed similar views in the National Security Strategy and National Defence Strategy documents it released in December.
Purnendra Jain, an emeritus professor at the University of Adelaide’s department of Asian studies, said Southeast Asian nations would continue to view China through their own strategic prism and assess their outlook independently.
“They are hesitant to make a choice between China and Japan; indeed, they want to interact with and engage both,” Jain said.
Joshua Bernard Espeña, a resident fellow at the International Development and Security Cooperation think tank in Manila, said that while Southeast Asian nations were concerned with how Japan was reacting militarily to China’s rise, “behind closed doors”, regional elites likely understood Tokyo’s approach.
“[They have] experiences with China’s maritime expansion,” Espeña said, referring to the skirmishes that countries such as Vietnam and the Philippines have had with Chinese vessels in the disputed South China Sea.
In the 2023 State of Southeast Asia Survey by Singapore’s ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, Japan emerged as the most trusted major power in the region, mainly due to its decades of development aid and infrastructure investment.
Warships of Japan, South Korea and the US take part in a missile defence exercise last month in the Sea of Japan, or East Sea. Photo: South Korea Defence Ministry via Zuma Press Wire/dpa
Tokyo’s defence posture
By 2027, Japan aims to double its defence spending to about 2 per cent of its gross domestic product – or 43 trillion yen (US$303.2 billion) over five years – a sharp increase from the 17.2 trillion yen it spent in the 2019 to 2023 period.
The new spending target is in line with Nato’s standard and is set to increase Japan’s annual budget to about 10 trillion yen, the world’s third-largest after the United States and China.
Jain said that Japan’s increased military spending had already begun and could accelerate over the next four years – though the country’s declining population and shrinking revenue base may prove a challenge.
North Korea fires another round of missiles after a US submarine docks in a South Korean port
North Korea fires another round of missiles after a US submarine docks in a South Korean port
“This may lead to the ‘security dilemma’ in the region, [or] one state’s increasing military strength leading other states to increase their military strength,” Jain said, adding that the “the game-changer in Japan’s threat perception” was the war in Ukraine.
He said that Beijing and Moscow’s ‘no-limits’ partnership had “unsettled Japanese strategists much more than before”, noting the less hawkish approach to defence and security Japan had taken under Prime Minister Fumio Kishida his predecessor Shinzo Abe.
Japan’s defence white paper was “not a cause but a symptom of the strategic situation”, Koga said.
“This reading of the environment has and will shape Japan’s security policy evolution and growing role in shaping the balance of power in the region,” Singh said.
Since the start of 2022, North Korea has test-fired around 100 missiles. In July, supreme leader Kim Jong-un personally oversaw the firing of the country’s newest intercontinental ballistic missile, the solid-fuel Hwasong-18.
