Ben Sando
In November 2024, Japanese Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya stopped in Kyiv for a surprise meeting with his counterpart, Andrii Sybiha. Iwaya’s priority was to discuss the some 12,000 North Korean soldiers battling Ukrainian forces in the Kursk border region of Russia.
This burgeoning military alliance between Pyongyang and Moscow threatens to upset the security balance in Northeast Asia and may force Tokyo to scale back its engagement with maritime issues in East Asia.
For the past two decades, a new generation of political leadership in Tokyo has encouraged a pivot away from Japan’s insular, restrained defence posture towards greater engagement in defence multilateralism, led by the United States. Former prime minister Shinzo Abe signalled his resolve in 2014 by reinterpreting Japan’s pacifist constitution to allow greater leeway for the Self-Defense Forces (SDF) to come to the aid of an ally under attack, an act Japan’s armed forces were previously unable to perform.
In 2016, Abe announced the Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP) strategy, which was geared towards curbing China’s growing influence in maritime Asia. Japan helped revitalise the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (the Quad), and has participated in naval exercises with Quad members in waters as far-flung as the Indian Ocean. In tandem with this enhanced multilateral engagement, the SDF has shifted its focus south and has invested in the defence of its southernmost islands, the Nansei Shoto, against Chinese aggression. Japan’s expansive new foreign policy has cemented it into the United States’ vision for East Asian order and endeared Tokyo to capitals throughout the Indo-Pacific.
But Tokyo’s expansive regional vision has implicitly relied on a relatively predictable balance of power in Japan’s immediate vicinity, Northeast Asia. The principal impediment to peace in Northeast Asia — North Korea — has historically been deterred by the US nuclear umbrella and remained weak and impoverished due to decades of economic sanctions. While South Korea has been preoccupied with balancing North Korean military power, Japan has been able to prioritise issues beyond its main archipelago, such as China’s threats to maritime security in East and Southeast Asia. For Japanese defence planners, the North Korean threat is not as urgent as China’s expansionism.
No comments:
Post a Comment