Japan increasingly seems to be leaving its post-World War II pacifism behind. As the global security environment deteriorates, the country has announced measures to deepen its strategic alliance with the United States and committed to do much more to ensure its own defense, including by nearly doubling its military spending and acquiring counterstrike capabilities under a new national security strategy.
As Harvard’s Joseph S. Nye, Jr., points out, relying on a strong alliance with the US is “by far the safest and most cost-effective option” for ensuring Japan’s security. The new measures announced by Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and US President Joe Biden last month are thus very good news, as they reinforce the US security guarantee and provide “reinsurance” in the event that Donald Trump or a similarly unreliable president returns to the White House.
For his part, Bill Emmott, Chair of the International Institute for Strategic Studies and the Japan Society of the United Kingdom, praises the Kishida government’s “determination to… deter others from attempting ‘unilateral changes to the status quo’” in East Asia. This commitment to deterrence is both the most important and the most difficult task that Japan has set for itself.
That is partly because, as Brahma Chellaney of the Center for Policy Research points out, China tends to avoid armed conflict, instead employing “salami tactics” that slice away other countries’ territories with a “combination of stealth, deception, and surprise.” To prevent China from altering the regional status quo further, Japan will have to take a proactive approach to countering China’s hybrid warfare.
Japan’s new strategic vision did not begin with Kishida. Rather, it “represents the culmination of a long-term shift that began under Kishida’s predecessor, Abe Shinzō,” explains Taniguchi Tomohiko, a former special adviser to Abe, who was assassinated last year. While Abe’s bold stance evoked considerable concern, it amounted to a rejection of an “absurd” situation: “Before Abe, if China had attacked a US warship near Japan’s territorial waters, the Japanese military would not have gotten involved.”
Upholding this approach is even less tenable at a time when security risks are escalating rapidly. As Abe pointed out last year – in his last-ever commentary – Japan has a “big role” to play in realizing the vision of a free and open Indo-Pacific – one in which China does not follow Russia’s example in Ukraine by invading Taiwan.
In the face of the threats posed by China, Russia, and North Korea, Japan’s self-defense depends more than ever on the strength of its alliances. By significantly increasing its own defense spending and pursuing closer military cooperation with the United States, the current government is moving in the right direction.
CAMBRIDGE – Last December, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced the most ambitious expansion of military power in Japan since the creation of the country’s Self-Defense Forces in 1954. Japanese defense spending will rise to 2% of GDP – twice the 1% level that has prevailed since 1976 – and a new National Security Strategy lays out all the diplomatic, economic, technological, and military instruments that Japan will use to protect itself in the years ahead.
Most notably, Japan will acquire the kind of long-range missiles that it had previously foresworn, and it will work with the United States to strengthen littoral defenses around the “first island chain” off China. Last month in Washington, following Kishida’s diplomatic tour through several other G7 countries, he and US President Joe Biden pledged closer defense cooperation. Among the factors precipitating these changes are China’s increased assertiveness against Taiwan and, especially, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which reminded a new generation of what military aggression looks like.
Of course, some of Japan’s neighbors worry that it will resume its militarist posture of the 1930s. When Kishida’s predecessor, Abe Shinzō, broadened the constitutional interpretation of self-defense to include collective undertakings with Japanese allies, he stoked concerns both within the region and from some segments of Japanese society.
But such alarmism can be reduced if one explains the full backstory. After World War II, militarism was deeply discredited within Japan, and not just because the US-imposed constitution restricted the Japanese military’s role to self-defense. During the Cold War, Japan’s security depended on cooperation with the US. When the Cold War ended in the 1990s, some analysts – in both countries – regarded the bilateral security treaty, in force since 1952, as a relic, and a Japanese commission was created to study whether Japan could do without it, such as by relying on the United Nations instead.
But the end of the Cold War did not mean that Japan no longer lived in a dangerous region. Its next-door neighbor is North Korea’s unpredictable dictatorship, which has consistently invested the country’s meager economic resources in nuclear and missile technology.
A much larger, longer-term concern is the rise of China, which surpassed Japan as the world’s second largest economy in 2010, and which disputes Japan’s control of the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea. To the north, a nuclear-armed Russia claims and controls territory that belonged to Japan before 1945. And on the economic front, Japan remains dependent on imports that travel through contested areas like the South China Sea. This is a persistent source of risk, because, unlike Europe after 1945, East Asia never benefited from full reconciliation between rivals or established strong regional institutions.
Faced with this situation, Japan has had four options for ensuring its security, only one of which has held much promise. Amending the pacifism out of its constitution and fully re-arming as a nuclear state would be costly, dangerous, and lacks domestic support. At the same time, seeking neutrality and relying on the UN Charter would not provide adequate security, while forming an alliance with China would give the latter far too much influence over Japanese policy. Or, lastly, it could maintain its alliance with the distant superpower.
That alliance is by far the safest and most cost-effective option. But since Donald Trump won the US presidency in 2016, some Japanese have worried about America turning to isolationism. Even in the early 1990s, when I was involved in renegotiating the terms of the US-Japan alliance at the end of the Cold War, high-ranking Japanese officials would ask me if the US might someday abandon Japan as China became stronger. Back then, many Americans regarded Japan as an economic threat, and many Japanese were open to a more UN-centered approach to ensuring their national security.
The situation changed with the Clinton administration’s 1995 East Asia Strategy Report, which invited greater Chinese participation in international affairs but also hedged against uncertainty by reinforcing the alliance with Japan. In 1996, the Clinton-Hashimoto Tokyo Declaration made clear that the US-Japan security alliance was the foundation for post-Cold War stability in East Asia. Still, there were questions about the reliability of American guarantees, leading to discussions among US and Japanese security experts, who helped flesh out the principle of American “extended deterrence.”
The best security guarantee is the presence of US troops, which Japan helps to maintain with generous host-nation support. The new measures announced by Kishida and Biden in January are designed both to reinforce this guarantee and to provide reinsurance in the event that Trump or a Trump-like figure returns to the White House. Importantly, these measures do not give Japan’s neighbors any reason to fear that it has reacquired a taste for aggression. In fact, strengthening the US-Japan alliance is the best way to ensure that Japan never does.
For the past two decades, former Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage and I have issued bipartisan reports on how to strengthen the US-Japan alliance. As one such report explains, “With the dynamic changes taking place throughout the Asia-Pacific, Japan will likely never have the same opportunity to help guide the fate of the region. In choosing leadership, Japan can secure her status as a tier-one nation and her necessary role as an equal partner in the alliance.”
In this context, Kishida’s recent actions can be seen as appropriate steps in the right direction. There is enormous potential for developing a more equal partnership and working with others in the provision of joint security. Doing so will be good for the US, good for Japan, and good for the rest of the world. Recent events offer grounds for optimism about the future of the US-Japan alliance and stability in East Asia.
In new strategy documents, Japan’s government has broken new ground with a public commitment to build up the country’s counterstrike and rapid mobilization capabilities. Though executing this task will not be easy, it has become essential to peace in the region.
LONDON – Japan’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and to the “strategic partnership” that Russia and China announced shortly beforehand, has been impressively decisive. The government’s proposal for a near-doubling of the country’s defense budget over the next five years demonstrates political realism and practical determination. The key question now is how to spend the money.
In its new National Security Strategy and National Defense Strategy, Japan acknowledges that it must continue to work with allies – especially the United States, with which it has had a security treaty since 1951 – if it is to defend itself and help maintain peace in the region. But these documents also offer something new. The government has publicly stated its determination to take the leading role in Japan’s self-defense, and to deter others from attempting “unilateral changes to the status quo.”
This commitment to deterrence is the most important task that Japan has set for itself. But it is also the most difficult. It means deterring an attack – conventional or nuclear – by North Korea. It means deterring aggression by Russia (such as from the four Kuril Islands off Japan’s northern coastline, which the Soviet Union seized in the final days of World War II). But most of all, it means deterring moves by China against either Taiwan or Japan’s strategically located Nansei Islands nearby.
Everyone knows that by “unilateral changes to the status quo,” the document is referring primarily to a Chinese invasion or blockade of Taiwan. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida raised the same issue at the June 2022 IISS Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, where he memorably warned in his keynote address that “Ukraine today could be East Asia tomorrow.”
For those of us who grew up during the Cold War, the word deterrence calls to mind nuclear weapons and the fearsome but ultimately reassuring doctrine of “mutual assured destruction.” But Japan does not have that option. Speculation about the country’s potential acquisition of nuclear weapons is just that: the Japanese are not going down that road any time soon – and certainly not under Kishida, whose hometown is Hiroshima.
Japan’s new defense build-up also reflects the sober recognition that the country may not always be able to rely on American protection (nuclear or otherwise). That would be especially true if Japan did not in the future make a significant contribution to the broader shared task of deterring China, Russia, and North Korea.
That is why the new strategy includes an eye-catching mention of acquiring and building “counterstrike capabilities,” meaning a force of missiles that potential adversaries understand can be used to retaliate swiftly or even to carry out pre-emptive strikes. Though the idea of a pre-emptive strike capability remains controversial, the principal aim is not to use the new missile force, but rather to be known to have it. That is the essence of deterrence.
Speed and power are the two principal characteristics of such a counterstrike capability. Top-quality intelligence, whether gathered alone or in collaboration with the US, will also be crucial in establishing the credibility of deterrence, because only then can the power of a counterstrike capability be used at the necessary speed. And building a credible counterstrike capability will be vitally important in improving Japan’s ability to deter its potential adversaries to the north and west – Russia and North Korea.
But the adversary to the south, China, presents a more difficult challenge. In recent years, Japan has been much clearer in signaling its opposition to “unilateral changes to the status quo” concerning Taiwan and the East China Sea. It has also made clear that its self-defense forces would support US forces in the case of conflict with China. But, again, deterrence in these theaters depends on Japan developing a credibly fast and powerful response capability.
To that end, Japan must not only modernize and expand its maritime, land, and air defense forces; it also must change how they are deployed. Although the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force – what others call the navy – and the large, well-armed Japan Coast Guard fleet do operate throughout the country’s huge territorial waters, neither they nor the army or air force has any significant base or supply depot in the southern Nansei Islands near Taiwan.
Without such bases, it does not really matter how powerful Japanese forces become, because it will still be too difficult to deploy them rapidly to the most likely conflict zones; and, crucially, it will be impossible to convey to Chinese strategists that Japan is indeed capable of a rapid mobilization. The potential to contribute to a military engagement only weeks or even months after the fact is unlikely to have a serious deterrent effect.
Joint use of US bases, both on the main island of Honshu and on the southern island of Okinawa, could help. But the biggest contribution would come from China knowing that any attempted invasion or coercion of Taiwan would be met by a powerful military response from nearby Japanese forces. That means establishing proper military bases in the southernmost islands.
Again, this will not be easy. The political sensitivities around Tokyo-based rule are as acute in these southern islands as they are farther north in Okinawa. Supplying such bases and making them suitable for long-term, year-round occupation will be costly. Yet this will be the real test of Japan’s new defense strategy over the next five years and beyond. Are Japanese capabilities sufficient to change Chinese military planners’ risk calculations? That, in the end, is what deterrence requires.
While Japan’s move toward rearmament is welcome, the embrace of Tomahawk missiles and hypersonic weapons alone will not force China to stop waging hybrid warfare. Japan must also find ways to frustrate China’s furtive efforts to alter the regional status quo while avoiding the risk of open combat.
TOKYO – For decades, Japan has based its international clout on economic competitiveness, not military might. But, with China’s lengthening shadow darkening its doorstep, Japan now seems to be abandoning its pacifist postwar security policy – which capped defense spending at about 1% of GDP and shunned offensive capabilities – in favor of assuming a central role in maintaining security in the Indo-Pacific region.
Last month, Japan unveiled a bold new national-security strategy, which includes a plan to double defense expenditure within five years. That spending – amounting to some $320 billion – will fund Japan’s largest military build-up since World War II, and implies the world’s third-largest defense budget, after the US and China. Importantly, the new strategy includes acquisition of preemptive counterstrike capabilities, such as Tomahawk cruise missiles from the United States, and the development of its own hypersonic weapons.
Japan began laying the groundwork for this shift under former Prime Minister Abe Shinzō, who was assassinated last July. On Abe’s watch, Japan increased defense spending by about 10%, and, more significantly, reinterpreted (with parliament’s approval) the country’s US-imposed “peace constitution” to allow the military to mobilize overseas for the first time since WWII. Abe also sought to amend Article 9 of the constitution, which renounces “the threat or use of force” by Japan, but his efforts were stymied by popular protests.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has not run into the same resistance. On the contrary, opinion polls show that a majority of Japanese support the military build-up. A similar shift has taken place in Kishida himself, who was widely considered a dove when he was foreign minister – a label that he publicly embraced.
The impetus for this shift is clear. In 2013, the year Xi Jinping became China’s president, Japan’s national-security strategy called China a strategic partner. According to the updated strategy, by contrast, China represents “an unprecedented and the greatest strategic challenge in ensuring the peace and security of Japan.” China’s incremental but unrelenting expansionism under Xi has rendered Japan’s pacifist stance untenable.
This is more apparent than ever in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has intensified fears that China could pursue a military option against Taiwan, which is effectively an extension of the Japanese archipelago. Last August, five of the nine missiles China fired during military exercises in the waters around Taiwan landed in Japan’s exclusive economic zone. Japan understandably views Taiwan’s security as vital for its own.
Japan is not the only once-conciliatory power to respond to Xi’s muscular revisionism with a newfound determination to bolster its defenses and forestall the emergence of a Sinocentric Indo-Pacific. Australia and India have embarked on the same path.
Moreover, a similar trend toward militarization has emerged among Japan’s Western allies. Germany, another pacifist country, has pledged to boost its defense spending to 2% of GDP (the same level Kishida is targeting) and accept a military leadership role in Europe. The United Kingdom has already surpassed the 2%-of-GDP level, yet aims to double its defense spending by 2030. The US has just hiked its already-mammoth military spending by 8%. And Sweden and Finland are joining a reinvigorated NATO.
While Japan’s rearmament is more widely accepted than ever – and for good reason – it is unlikely to be enough to deter China’s expansionist creep. After all, despite having the world’s third-largest defense budget, India has been locked in a military standoff with China on the disputed Himalayan border since 2020, when stealth encroachments by the People’s Liberation Army caught it by surprise. Clashes continue to erupt intermittently, including just last month.
Unlike Russia, which launched a full frontal assault on Ukraine, China prefers salami tactics, slicing away other countries’ territories with a combination of stealth, deception, and surprise. The PLA’s so-called “Three Warfares,” which focus on the psychological, public-opinion, and legal aspects of conflict, has enabled China to secure strategic victories in the South China Sea – from seizing the Johnson South Reef in 1988 to occupying the Scarborough Shoal in 2012 – while barely firing a shot.
Because China generally avoids armed conflict, it incurs minimal international costs for its actions, even as it unilaterally redraws the geopolitical map of the South China Sea and nibbles away at Bhutan’s borderlands, one pasture at a time. The government in Beijing managed to decimate Hong Kong’s autonomy without facing significant Western sanctions.
All this impunity has only emboldened Xi, who is now seeking to replicate the South China Sea strategy in the East China Sea by escalating maritime and aerial incursions to strengthen its claims to the Japanese-administered Senkaku Islands. It has even tried to police the waters off the Senkakus.
Japan’s response to China’s provocations has so far remained restrained, to say the least: no Japanese defense minister has so much as conducted an aerial inspection of the Senkakus, lest it anger China. Yet Japan’s embrace of Tomahawk missiles and hypersonic weapons does not necessarily represent an effective means of resisting China’s hybrid warfare, either. For that, Japan must find ways to frustrate China’s furtive efforts to alter the status quo while avoiding the risk of open combat.
Japan’s push to become more self-reliant on defense should be welcomed. Improved defense capabilities will translate into a more confident and secure Japan – and a more stable Indo-Pacific. But if Japan is to “disrupt and defeat” threats, as the national-security strategy puts it, Japanese leaders must move proactively to beat China at its own game.
TANIGUCHI TOMOHIKO
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s plan to double the country’s military spending, together with the recent update to Japan’s national security strategy, continues a historic policy shift begun by his predecessor. The aim is clear: to improve Japan's ability to confront the threat posed by China’s expansionism.
TOKYO – The gusto with which Japan has embraced rearmament has surprised its allies and international partners. Last month, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida unveiled detailed plans to double defense spending over the next five years, leaving no doubt about the country’s determination to expand its military capabilities to deter China’s expansionist ambitions.
Japan’s new strategic vision represents the culmination of a long-term shift that began under Kishida’s predecessor, Abe Shinzō, who was assassinated last July. During Abe’s tenure, which lasted from his return to power in December 2012 until his resignation in September 2020, Japan revamped its military doctrine and significantly increased defense expenditure. Abe also created a cabinet-level National Security Council, established the National Security Secretariat to support it, streamlined military procurement by forming the Acquisition, Technology & Logistics Agency (ATLA), and, last but not least, sought to amend Japan’s pacifist constitution, though in vain.
Taken together, Abe’s policies marked a historic shift in Japan’s defense policy and regional standing. No longer would Japanese security be a matter of wishful thinking, willful blindness, and dependence on the United States. Before Abe, if China had attacked a US warship near Japan’s territorial waters, the Japanese military would not have gotten involved. Abe rejected this absurd approach and pushed Japan to assume a central role in the Indo-Pacific. Now, if the US and China were to go to war over Taiwan, Japan could cooperate with the US military. In a role reversal of sorts, the Japanese military is now protecting US ships and planes in the region.
Kishida’s ambitious defense policies, which include increasing military spending to ¥43 trillion ($330 billion) by 2027 and revising Japan’s national security strategy to allow for counterstrike capabilities, implement many of Abe’s ideas. They also expand on them in four meaningful ways.
First, the new security doctrine calls a spade a spade. When Japan published its first-ever national security strategy in 2013, China’s incursions into Japanese waters and airspace near the Senkaku Islands were described as “an issue of concern to the international community, including Japan.” The revised strategy, however, refers to China – in line with US rhetoric – as “an unprecedented and the greatest strategic challenge” to Japan. As this change makes clear, Japan’s military build-up aims, first and foremost, to deter Chinese expansionism.
Second, the new strategy seeks to build up fuel and ammunition supplies, thereby addressing a problem that Abe repeatedly warned about. While Japan has purchased many fighter jets, ships, and combat vehicles over the past decade, it still lacks the strategic stockpiles and secure storage facilities needed to sustain a long war.
To be sure, stocking up on munitions and fuel is far less glamorous than purchasing F-35 fighter jets or long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles from the US. But while massive arms purchases will certainly help Japan face the triple threat of Russia, China, and North Korea, the truth is that its strategic position is far more precarious than that of any other G7 member. Unless it builds and maintains adequate strategic reserves, Japan will not be able to defend itself.
Third, the US-Japanese defense pact used to have an unwritten rule that all new military assets should be under the Americans’ control. Recently, however, Japan, the United Kingdom, and Italy announced a joint effort to develop a next-generation fighter jet. The US Department of Defense immediately put out a statement in support of the new partnership, reflecting the growing military cooperation between the US, Japan, European countries, Australia, and India.
Lastly, the revised national security strategy states that “Japan will actively accept displaced people due to war.” This allusion to a possible Chinese invasion of Taiwan, together with the implied willingness to accept the many Taiwanese citizens who would surely flee if that happened, did not attract much attention, but it is groundbreaking.
Had Abe lived, he would have been pleased that Kishida’s government is pursuing many of the goals he wanted to achieve. While the new national security agenda stops short of amending the existing restrictions on the deployment of offensive weapons, it does emphasize the need to develop counterstrike capabilities that would enable Japan to hit targets in other countries in the event of an attack.
But while the proposed increase in military spending seems to enjoy broad public support, the question of how to pay for it will most likely be the subject of fierce parliamentary debate. Kishida’s plan to fund the additional expenditures by raising taxes has already provoked strong opposition, even within his own party. Kishida’s competence will undoubtedly be put to the test over the coming months, as will Japan’s newfound strategic resolve.
Realizing a Free and Open Indo-PacificSep 26, 2022ABE SHINZŌ
Less than a month before he was assassinated, Japan’s longest-serving prime minister set out his vision for the region. He buttressed his case by comparing China’s growing threats against Taiwan to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
TOKYO – The invasion of Ukraine by Russia has drastically changed the global security environment and posed serious challenges to Japan’s security policy.
The invasion of Ukraine, an independent state, is a clear violation of international law and is absolutely intolerable. Initially, some experts, like think-tankers in the United States, predicted that the capital city, Kyiv, would fall within a few days, yet the Ukrainian government and people have remained resolute in their fight to defend their homeland.
Ukraine stood its ground against the great power, Russia. Adherence to the basic principle of “defending the homeland,” accompanied by Western countries’ large-scale military and financial assistance to the Ukrainians and imposition of economic sanctions on Russia, soon brought about a major change in the course of the war.
Did Russian President Vladimir Putin ever predict that Japan, the US, and Europe – a coalition of the willing that shares the fundamental values of freedom, democracy, and the rule of law – would unite to assist Ukraine?
Russia’s invasion attests to the extreme difficulty a single state can face in protecting its territory and its people’s lives and property by itself. As such, it is not unrelated to the security environment surrounding Japan.
During my first administration, in 2007, in an address to the Indian Parliament entitled “The Confluence of the Two Seas,” I departed from the “Asia-Pacific” idea and introduced a new geopolitical concept that envisaged the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean as one “free sea.” Bearing in mind China’s efforts to become a military superpower, I also sought cooperation with countries in Asia that shared basic values, as well as an alignment between Japan, the US, Australia, and India.
Unfortunately, the US initially took a cautious stance in consideration of China’s stance at the six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear development, which were then underway. India, attentive to its tradition of non-alignment, stayed on the sidelines. Nonetheless, with the support of Australian Prime Minister John Howard, I succeeded in realizing a high-level dialogue among the four states (informally known as the Quad).
Then, in 2016, during my second administration, I formally announced the idea of a “Free and Open Indo-Pacific” at the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD) in Nairobi. Later, US President Donald Trump changed the name of the “Pacific Command” to “Indo-Pacific Command,” and the US began to align its military and diplomatic strategy with the strategy advocated by Japan.
The Quad foreign ministers’ meeting and the summit meeting were realized, respectively, under my administration and that of Yoshihide Suga. The joint statement issued after Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, US President Joe Biden, Australian Prime Minister Tony Albanese, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a summit in Tokyo on May 24, 2022, articulated the following principles regarding the regional situation in the Indo-Pacific:
We will champion adherence to international law, particularly as reflected in the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), and the maintenance of freedom of navigation and overflight, to meet challenges to the maritime rules-based order, including in the East and South China Seas. We strongly oppose any coercive, provocative, or unilateral actions that seek to change the status quo and increase tensions in the area, such as the militarization of disputed features, the dangerous use of coast guard vessels and maritime militia, and efforts to disrupt other countries’ offshore resource exploitation activities.
Since the “Confluence of the Two Seas,” I have made known the threat posed by China, and doing so has borne fruit. Even the United Kingdom, France, and Germany have sent naval ships to the Indo-Pacific. It is no exaggeration to say that the concept of a free and open Indo-Pacific has become a major turning point in global security policy.
Taiwan is located precisely in the Indo-Pacific. But rising tensions with China are linked to a situation half a world away, in Ukraine.
The Russia-Ukraine conflict has several things in common with the tensions between China and Taiwan. First, Russia and China are nuclear powers and permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. Second, Ukraine and Taiwan have no military allies. But there is a crucial difference between Ukraine and Taiwan: Ukraine is internationally recognized as an independent state and is a member of the UN. That is why Russia’s invasion has been condemned worldwide as a violation of international law.
Taiwan, on the other hand, is not a UN member, and few countries recognize it as a sovereign state. If China advances on Taiwan, its leaders will claim that Taiwan is part of China, and that their actions are an internal matter intended to ensure China’s territorial integrity.
It remains to be seen whether countries will unite to assist Taiwan and impose economic sanctions on China, as has been the case in Ukraine.
Biden made it clear at a press conference in Japan that his administration would engage militarily to defend Taiwan. In the past, the US had adhered to a policy of “strategic ambiguity,” deliberately not clarifying the extent of its commitment to the defense of Taiwan. But I thought that clearly stating the US commitment would serve as a strong message to deter China from advancing on Taiwan by force. In that sense, I appreciated Biden’s remarks.
Backed by its huge economic power, China is expanding its influence in various regions and building military bases at the same time. While Japan, the US, Australia, and India have forged an extremely important framework for countering the threat, it is important to deepen our ties with countries that share our values, including European countries.
Japan has a big role to play. It must strengthen its defense capabilities, further deepen its alliance with the US, and realize the vision of a free and open Indo-Pacific.
This translation of “A message to the readers of the Japanese edition” by Abe Shinzō, dated June 10, 2022, is the last text Abe wrote before his assassination on July 8. It can be found in the Japanese edition of Indo-Pacific Strategies: Navigating Geopolitics at the Dawn of a New Age.
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