The emergence of Middle Power Asia

Over the past week, we have seen more signs of the shape that international relations in East Asia will take over the coming decades.

I've written before about the role that middle powers — most notably Japan, Australia, South Korea, ASEAN acting as a bloc, and to a lesser extent India — will play in the East Asia balance, maneuvering between the US and China, the region's two giants as they attempt to enmesh China in regional institutions and profit economically from its rise while cooperating with the US to hedge against a violent turn in China's rise and to ensure that they have strategic flexibility more generally.

Prime Minister Aso Taro visited China to meet Chinese President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao, renewing their commitment to building a "strategic, reciprocal relationship" and discussing a number of urgent problems, most notably the global spread of swine flu, the ongoing global economic crisis, and North Korea's latest turn to intransigence. The deep freeze of the Koizumi years is increasingly distant, and these Sino-Japanese summits are becoming so routine in their agendas as to be boring. But in this relationship, boring is positive. Despite Chinese anxiety about the gift sent by Aso to Yasukuni Shrine for the Spring Festival prior to his trip to China (and the expected Chinese netizen protests about welcoming Aso to China after his gift), Wen and Hu mentioned the history problem but did not harp on it, just as Aso expressed his hope for Chinese participation in nuclear disarmament. Both sides seem content to accentuate the positive in their meetings, and — aside from Wen's cautionary note — the Basil Fawlty line remains in effect: don't mention the war.

In fact, looking at the post in which I first mentioned the Basil Fawlty line, Aso has proved me wrong. Last May I wrote, "Mr. Aso and his comrades will most likely not embrace the Fawlty line." However, it appears that the structural factors that draw Japan and China to one another have tamed another Japanese conservative politician. In fact, in a speech in Beijing Thursday, Aso alluded to the possibility of an economic partnership agreement between Japan and China; the obstacles to such an agreement are high, certainly as high or higher than the obstacles facing an EPA or trade agreement between Japan and the US, but as symbolism goes it is significant that Aso mentioned the possibility of institutionalizing the Sino-Japanese economic relationship. In the meantime, Japan and China outlined the three pillars of their relationship going forward: economic cooperation (Japan will host a senior-level economic dialogue in June); environmental and technology cooperation; and cultural and educational exchanges. The beginnings of perpetual peace? Hardly: there is still much work to do, whether on the Senkakus, North Korea, the history problem (how sustainable is the Fawlty line after all?), or Chinese military transparency. But by acknowledging that there are areas on which they can cooperate and that there is value to meeting even without perfect harmony in their positions, Japan and China are making Northeast Asia ever so slightly more stable.

At the same time, even as Aso parlayed with China's senior leaders in Beijing, Hamada Yasukazu, his defense minister, prepared for a Golden Week visit to Washington where he would be meeting with Robert Gates, his US counterpart. Gates and Hamada met Friday morning, and central to the discussion was Hamada's practically begging Gates for the right to purchase F-22s from the US as Japan considers its next-generation fighter. "Even just a few," Hamada said. Of course, it is not in Gates's power to permit Japan to buy the F-22; as mentioned in this post, its sale abroad is prohibited by the Obey Amendment, meaning that the Japanese government should be making its case to Congress. (I am certain that if it isn't doing so already, the Japanese government will be lobbying representatives and senators from the forty-four states involved in the production of the F-22. Sakurai Yoshiko tellingly included this detail in the articles mentioned in this post.) No word on how Gates received Hamada's petition, but the Gates-Hamada meeting reveals the other side of Middle Power Asia. With one hand, Japan is reaching out to China, with the other it is balancing by constantly working to strengthen the US-Japan alliance. Gates and Hamada discussed coordinating as the US prepares its next Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) and Japan prepares its next National Defense Program Outline for later this year. They also talked about further strengthening missile defense cooperation and devoting sufficient attention to the realignment of US forces in Japan.

Australia, as I've written before, faces the same strategic imperatives, a fact thrown into relief by events this week. As it was characterized in the Economist's Banyan column this week, "On the one hand, Australia’s crackerjack fit with the Chinese economy is reshaping Australia’s trade and investment flows, drawing the country into a China-centred Asian orbit. On the other, Australia’s security hangs on America’s continued presence in the western Pacific." One can easily substitute Japan for Australia without skipping a beat. This week Australia has been feeling the tension growing out of its economic relationship, due to an investment bid by Chinalco in Rio Tinto. In a speech at the Lowy Institute, Malcolm Turnbull, leader of the opposition, called on the government to reject the bid, which, regardless of the outcome of the bid, has brought concerns about the Sino-Australian relationship to the fore — anticipating, in a sense, the Rudd government's defense white paper.

Much as Japan is looking to hedge against China, so too is Australia: reports suggest that the white paper will lavish Australia's navy with new resources.

Rory Medcalf at the Interpreter writes that Japanese and South Korean analysts look favorably upon Australia's plans, although he suggests that the Rudd government's plans could spark a spate of middle power arms building. But regardless of what other middle powers do, the Rudd program and Japan's desperate pursuit of the F-22 suggest that the middle powers will not feel secure simply by pursuing external balancing (tighter alliances with the US and other countries in the region). Particularly as the US looks to deepen its cooperation with China across a range of issues — whether or not it is appropriate to refer to Sino-US cooperation as a G2 — the middle powers will likely rely more on internal balancing, concluding that while their alliances with the US are fine, perhaps an additional guarantee of security is worth the investment. They may look to each other for security too, although as I argued when Australia and Japan issued a joint security declaration, it is unclear what Japan and Australia can do for each other.

In any case, there are limits to how far the middle powers can and will go in their hedging against China. They will continue to work on their economic relationships with China, they will continue to look for opportunities to bind China through regional institutions, and, especially in the case of Japan, they will face fiscal constraints in maintaining capabilities adequate to defend themselves without the US. Despite concerns about the Gates defense budget, the US is not going anywhere — and it is as imperative for the middle powers to ensure that that remains the case as it is for them to ensure that the US does not go overboard with containing China. For the foreseeable future, this is the delicate balance facing the middle powers.

A perfect storm for security policy change?

The great puzzle in Japanese security policy is why despite the consensus within the LDP in favor of a more robust, independent security and persistent worries about North Korea and China among the public at large Japan has failed to spend more — or the same — on defense and made legal and doctrinal changes that would enable Japan to meet threats originating from its neighbors.

Will 2009 be a turning point at which Japan opts for a new security policy?

The response to North Korea's rocket launch has been revealing. As I have already discussed, LDP conservatives have responded to the launch by dusting off old proposals and pushing for them with renewed vigor. Abe Shinzo is back in the spotlight. The conservatives, marginalized when public discussion focused solely on the dismal state of the Japanese economy, have been experiencing a bit of a surge going into the Golden Week holiday.

Prime Minister Aso Taro is revisiting plans from the Abe administration to revise the constitutional interpretation prohibiting the exercise of the right of collective self-defense. On Thursday, Aso met with Yanai Shunji, who headed a private advisory group under Abe to consider the question of collective self-defense, to revisit the question in light of recent events. Aso has previously expressed his desire to tackle collective self-defense, but it appears that North Korea may have given him the opportunity to move forward with it.

He will have plenty of help from his conservative allies. On Saturday, Abe spoke in Aichi prefecture, where he stressed the importance of collective self-defense and called for including reinterpretation of the prohibition in the LDP's election manifesto this year. As is the standard line when talking about collective self-defense, Abe stressed that if Japan is unable to engage in collective self-defense, the alliance will be finished the moment North Korea fires a missile in the direction of the United States.

Of course, it is still an open question whether Japan would be able to shoot down a missile. And in the Obama administration's defense budget proposal, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates will push for cuts in research into boost-phase intercept technology, in part because, as Nathan Hodge notes at Danger Room, Gates believes that midcourse and terminal phase missile defense systems are sound. In other words, at the same time that Gates has shrugged off the North Korean missile threat, Japanese conservatives are using the supposed threat to the US and the US-Japan alliance posed by North Korean missiles to move their agenda.

Meanwhile, other conservatives are using the US response to argue that instead of collective self-defense, Japan should be more focused on acquiring the capabilities necessary to defend itself. A recent Sakurai Yoshiko article from Shukan Daiyamondo, reprinted at her website, is a classic of the genre. Sakurai looks at Gates's nonchalance towards the North Korean launch as a signal to Japan that it is on its own. Therefore, "For defense procurement, Japan has until now consistently cut its defense budget by two percent a year. This must stop. We should quickly change course and increase the defense budget." This is a been a consistent theme in her writing, especially of late. Another article, this one in Shukan Shincho, covers much of the same ground but focuses more on how the US is moving closer to China and, by shifting its defense priorities (i.e., by cutting orders of the F-22), will leave Japan vulnerable to China's new model fighter jets. Japan, she argues, is in a tough spot as it picks a new fighter for the ASDF, this despite Japan's having no option to buy the F-22 in the first place — Japan would be in a tough spot regardless of US budgetary decisions. (Sakurai actually backs away from the argument that the US is somehow weaker militarily and focuses on the dangers of Obama's naivete.) Yet another article by Sakurai, this one in the current Shukan Daiyamondo, picks up where her Shincho article left off, castigating the Obama administration for its "unrealistic" China policy and complaining about nuclear disarmament and the F-22 cuts.

(Yes, the conservatives are obsessed with the F-22. This article by Noguchi Hiroyuki, a defense reporter for the Sankei Shimbun, lavishes praise on the F-22 in a manner surely unmatched by all but the US Air Force and Lockheed Martin. Noguchi's article contains many of the same complaints as Sakurai's articles, in particular complaints about the threat posed to Japan by the US government's love for China. Noguchi's article is also of note because he chides Gates for talking about the F-22 as a cold war program; the cold war in Asia, he says, never ended. Which is precisely how Japan's conservatives see Asia, despite economic interdependence with China that dwarfs anything seen during the cold war.)

This is all fairly typical coming from these sources. The difference is that now these calls for a more robust, autonomous Japanese security posture dovetail nicely with the push within the LDP, which in turn has benefited from the emergency drill conducted courtesy of North Korea earlier this month. We are seeing a concerted push by Japan's conservatives to make the case for bigger defense budgets, and, in the case of some of them, greater autonomy from the US. Surely China's fleet review this week will provide more grist for their mill, not unlike the current debate over defense policy in Australia.

The DPJ, it seems, does not want to be left behind in this discussion, and so Asao Keiichiro, the defense minister in the DPJ's next cabinet, on Saturday called for conventional capabilities that would enable Japan to strike North Korean launchers preemptively. (Full disclosure: I previously worked in Asao's office.)

I have no problem with Japan's having this discussion — at this point any discussion about security policy is meaningful. But there are a number of questions that none of Japan's jingoes have answered. For example, to Asao, Abe, Yamamoto Ichita, and the others who have used North Korea's launch to call for preemptive strike capabilities, what specifically do you envision for this role? And, as Jun Okumura asks, can Japan actually find and hit North Korea's mobile launchers? Have you at least considered the consequences of an independent preemptive strike capability for the alliance? By how much should the defense budget be increased? The Japanese people deserve to hear their answers to these questions. It's an election year, after all. It's also the year of the drafting of the latest National Defense Program Outline, which this debate will surely impact.

But I wish the debate wasn't so one-sided. I do wish there was someone willing to argue against the idea that East Asia is in the midst of a new cold war with China, with North Korea's being a sideshow to the main event. I wish there was someone of sufficient stature willing to flood the Japanese media space like Sakurai, except with nuanced arguments about the nature of the East Asian security environment and the "co-opetive" relationship most countries in the region have with China.

Nevertheless, I hope Japan has this discussion, and I hope that public pays attention to it. I'm skeptical that it will produce dramatic changes — there is that whole economic crisis after all — but the conservatives now enjoy the most favorable conditions in which to advance their arguments that they've enjoyed in years.

F-22 as a totem for China hawks

The F-22 issue continues to smolder, it seems, as Japan eyes the next-generation stealth fighter hungrily.

The US Congress, however, has just passed the 2008 defense budget, which retains the Obey Amendment's prohibition on the export of the F-22.

Will this be the end of Tokyo's lobbying to get the prohibition lifted in time for Japan to name the F-22 as Japan's next air superiority fighter by the budget request scheduled for the summer of 2008?

I would be surprised if the Japanese government used this occasion to start shopping around for an alternative. The problem is not just Japan's apparent obsession with having the very best fighter in the world, but a kind of unthinking attitude among American supporters of the US-Japan alliance, who see the alliance as explicitly designed to contain China to the exclusion of all other roles and bilateral issues. Anything that improves the alliance's ability to resist China is unquestionably good, and should be done.

One example of this view can be found at Commentary's Contentions blog, where Gordon Chang, author of The Coming Collapse of China, writes, "Not only do the Japanese need to buy them, we have a compelling need to sell them." For Chang, it's really that simple. There's no mention of Japan's questionable ability to defend military secrets, no mention of the thorny issues that have long dogged US-Japan cooperation on the development and procurement of arms, no mention of doubts about whether Japan can afford the F-22, and no mention of whether the delicate, high-tech F-22 is actually the best choice for Japan's needs. The F-22, Chang informs us, was designed "to penetrate the Soviet Union and face its fleet of Su-27 fighters." Guess who has Su-27s? Ergo, Japan should have the plane designed to combat them. To Chang, it really is that simple.

I'm not saying that there aren't any good arguments for selling Japan F-22s — the Congressional Research Service report mentioned in this post outlines the pros and cons of Japan's acquiring the F-22 — but the matter must be considered soundly, with careful consideration of whether Japan might not be better off buying more of a different, less expensive fighter that will be more durable. And we should be questioning hyperbolic claims like Chang's that "We should arm allies that will fight on our side in the event of a large-scale conflict in Asia, which is increasingly likely."

Increasingly likely? Really? I look at Asia and I see the diminishing potential for conflict (discussed here), in spite of the ongoing arms buildup across the region. The potential obviously hasn't vanished entirely, but there is a certain appreciation across the region — not least among US military authorities at Pacific Command in Hawaii — that the security environment requires calm, steady management by the region's great powers with concurrent measures for political and economic cooperation.

Accordingly, the US decision on the F-22 should be made in light of these conditions, not based on some apocalyptic fantasy of a "large-scale conflict" to come.

Combating the China threat thesis

Japan's Ministry of Defense has issued its first white paper as the Ministry of Defense, and it seems that this year's edition is unique in its focus on China as a threat to Japan.

And it seems that the Yomiuri Shimbun is quite pleased by this, according to its editorial today. Citing America's debate on the same matter, Yomiuri notes the report's calling attention to China's pursuit of blue-water naval capabilities and long-range aviation capabilities. (Interestingly, Yomiuri published this editorial on the same day that Asahi devoted its entire editorial space to an editorial marking the seventieth anniversary of the Marco Polo Bridge incident, which is recognized as marking the beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese War — pointing at the need for Sino-Japanese reconciliation.)

Not having read the report yet, I will limit my judgments to Yomiuri's position, which blithely talks about the threat posed by China's rapid military modernization without actually bothering to note what threat China poses exactly. It seems fair for a reader to ask whether Yomiuri has specific scenarios in mind, or if it's just peddling the same hysteria found in some quarters of American policy debate. As I (and others) have argued before, the casual assumption that Chinese military modernization — especially at sea — is necessarily a threat to the region is inappropriate, and ought to be challenged by those interested in maintaining peace and order in the Asia-Pacific. Rather than issue the occasional alarmist report, the US, Japan, Australia, and other powers in the region should be thinking about how to co-opt China's military strength, not making self-fulfilling prophecies of military struggles to come.

Indeed, given the deepening mutual interdependence between China and the region's powers, none of them can afford to be too antagonistic. (Australia's recent publication of a defense report that peddles the same line as Japan's is baffling, given that Australia is, if anything, more dependent on maintaining a healthy relationship with China.) Washington, Canberra, and Tokyo surely don't need to be told that. So why these reports?

Arguably it has as much to do with the need to justify expensive defense programs (creating a budgetary enemy), as with the actual threat posed by China to their interests. Australia of late has been having an active debate about its future defense doctrine, rooted in having the ability to defend Australia alone if necessary (see this article at Defense Industry Daily on Australia's new airpower thinking). Hmm, defense of Australia — what country would Australia have to defend itself against, and what expensive technologies would it need to purchase in order to do so?

In Japan, meanwhile, the government has, despite a decade of falling defense expenditures, focused on enhancing its naval capabilities and airpower. Indeed, Prime Minister Abe has approached the US once again about purchasing F-22s as Japan's next air superiority fighter — despite oft-stated US doubts about selling. (These doubts can be found spelled out in a recent Congressional Research Service report, available for download here.) For the Japanese government, approaching the US about the F-22, it can't hurt to have a thick report in hand showing the threat posed by China to Japan (and a newspaper headline or two reinforcing the threat).

Level heads in these three governments must steadfastly resist the alarmist rhetoric emanating from China hawks and their allies in the media and the defense industry. The region is too complicated — and the stakes too important — to fall into simple fear-mongering.

The story that wouldn't die

Bill Gertz, Washington Times reporter and leading proponent of the "China Threat" thesis, has published yet another item in his weekly "Inside the Ring" feature talking about how "pro-China officials" in the administration are undermining Japan's bid to purchase F-22 stealth fighters.

I previously discussed here that General Jeffrey Kohler, head of the Defense Department's Defense Cooperation Agency, quashed reports that the US was even thinking about taking the necessary steps to put the F-22 on the market, and before that I asked if the seemingly fragile F-22 was even the right choice for Japan.

And yet Gertz continues to bang the drum on the F-22 — wailing about a conspiracy in the administration to deprive Japan (and Australia and Israel and South Korea) of the advanced fighter.

Gertz is probably the most prominent example of an opinion maker inclined to ignore signs of Sino-US cooperation, such as this one discussed earlier today, and assume that the US and China and destined to come to blows. Anyone paying attention to the region, however, cannot ignore just how ambiguous the regional security environment has become, which is why prudent management of US Asia policy is more important than ever.

If the "China threat" thesis was true, if China was simply an unambiguous threat to American interests that had to be stopped immediately, US Asia policy would be simple: cut ties with China, round up our friends, and goad China into changing its behavior. The reality of the region is that no country can afford to take such a stance vis-a-vis China. The US (as well as every other country in the Asia-Pacific) and China have shared interests, and it is Washington's responsibility to find ways to secure those interests and minimizes the consequences of divergence in other areas.

I guess, as implied by Blake Hounshell in this post on Foreign Policy's Passport blog, people tend to see the China they want to see.

The end of the F-22 question?

Sharon Weinberger at the Danger Room notes that General Jeffrey Kohler, head of the Defense Cooperation Agency at the Department of Defense, quashed reports that the US is prepared to sell the F-22 to allies like Japan and Israel.

The Chosun Ilbo, of course, reported this immediately.

There may be the occasional report that appears to contradict Kohler's statement, but I think it's safe to say that the US will not be permitting the export of the F-22 anytime soon, if ever.

I guess there won't be any F-22s "emblazoned with the rising sun" after all.

There are a few lessons in this, however.

First, the Bush administration appears to have a lost whatever grip on policy coordination it had remaining. This story was driven by contradictory messages from different administration officials (including Ambassador Thomas Schieffer), until it was finally quashed by the one man who actually had power over arms export decisions.

Two, and more significantly, this was something of a false alarm that illustrates just how sensitive the countries of Northeast Asia are to perceived fluctuations, however small, in the balance of power, especially, not surprisingly, South Korea.

It seems that the old realist rules of the game aren't quite as obsolete as the heralds of globalization would have us believe; indeed, they remain front and center in the thinking of the region's powers. So Thomas Barnett's optimism on China's military role may be a bit too hopeful. While China may be looking to contribute to global order on the margins, all signs point to its fundamental concern with the balance of power in its own immediate neighborhood. (And so it goes for Japan, the Koreas, the US...)

Deflating the F-22

Over at Wired's Danger Room blog, covering defense technology, Noah Shachtman writes of the long, weird history of the development of the F-22, noting that as the price of the F-22 went up, the US Air Force had to derive new roles for what was originally intended as solely an air superiority fighter.

In discussing the efficacy of the F-22, Shachtman cites a revealing remark by USAF General Ronald Keys on where the F-22 can be deployed: "If war breaks out, I'm sending the F-22...But not for operations in Iraq or Afghanistan. I didn't buy the F-22 for Iraq. We're looking for what can sop up intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance [ISR] in Iraq and Afghanistan. Is the investment [of sending the F-22] worth it? Is it a good idea or just an attractive idea? Will it complicate the air component commander's problems for no gain?"

As such, concerns about Japanese interest in purchasing the F-22 for the Japanese Air Self-Defense Force — such as the three articles published by South Korea's Chosun Ilbo (found here, here, and here) — are, for the moment, vastly overblown. Given the natural reluctance to use a fighter aircraft with a $300 million price tag when another plane might do the job, one has to wonder if Japan would go through with the purchase of a fleet of F-22s when what it needs is a durable workhorse, not a fighter so advanced that it nearly crashed when its systems failed while crossing the international dateline.

Abe's first six months

The FT's David Pilling provides a solid summary of Abe Shinzo's first six months in the Kantei.

Being a summary, there is, of course, little new in this article, but it serves as a good reminder of the problems with the Abe Cabinet -- and of Abe's tendencies as a leader.

I found this paragraph, though, particularly distressing:

Those close to him say he would have benefited from a fight for the premiership. Many of the ruling Liberal Democratic party factions take credit for propelling him to office and all are busily seeking political patronage and influence. As a result, Mr Abe has appeared far more willing than the stubborn and single-minded Mr Koizumi to listen to often competing advice.

If Abe somehow manages to go the distance, remaining as president of the LDP for the maximum six years, how will six years of governance in this vein leave the LDP -- and Japan? Imagine six years of window-dressing legislation like the education reform, that seeks to create a more self-confident Japan even as public finances and public services crumble in the face of Japan's demographic collapse.

None of this will, of course, be discussed at Camp David this coming week, at least not in any particular depth. Abe will no doubt reassure President Bush that he is in firm command at home, that he is moving his agenda forward -- pointing to recent legislative victories -- while reassuring Bush that the Japanese government remains his firmest ally. (Bush will no doubt be pleased to hear that -- remember this cartoon -- and there will no doubt be lots of flighty rhetoric about how strong the alliance is today.)

In light of the anticipated love fest, however, I wonder how Bush will go about telling Abe that the US will not be selling the F-22 to Japan anytime soon, no matter how much Abe, Kyuma, and company lay on the "bar-none ranch" rhetoric. Given that the US has already said no to John Howard's Australia, the Bush administration's other remaining close ally, I just don't anticipate the US turning around and offering to amend the Obey amendment's restrictions for Japan. (For more on the F-22 question, check out Shisaku.)