Atlantic Sentinel

Tag: Japan

  • United States Consider Drone Deployment to East China Sea

    In what seemed a routine meeting between American defense secretary Leon Panetta and his Japanese counterpart Satoshi Morimoto last week, The Yomiuri Shimbun reports that the two allies agreed to “consider conducting surveillance” by unmanned spy aircraft over the disputed Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea.

    Known as the Diaoyu Islands in China, the competing claims between the two Asian nations involve a deeply emotional issue and stir nationalist passions on both sides. It dates back to 1895 when Imperial Japan humiliated a weakened and divided China and took control of the islands.

    After receding in importance in Sino-Japanese relations for most of the last century, during which China was alternately grappling with internal strife and civil war, the dispute flared up again in 2010 when a Chinese fishing trawler crashed into a Japanese coast guard vessel.

    The Chinese captain was arrested which fueled a nationalist outrage in China. After two weeks of escalating tensions, which saw China suspend all senior level meetings with Japan, encouraged its citizens to cancel trips to the country and suspend the export of rare earth minerals, Japan relinquished and released the captain.

    Concerned about China’s possible future actions over the islands, Japan and the United States have been elevating their level of cooperation diplomatically and militarily since.

    At the Pentagon last Friday, the two countries announced the eventual deployment of the Marine Corps MV-22 Osprey aircraft to Okinawa “to enable Marines to fly faster and farther… to remote islands in Japan.” The Osprey is a tiltrotor aircraft, giving it the ability to land like a helicopter and fly with the speed and range of a fixed-wing aircraft.

    Morimoto also said that Japan is moving forward with its “dynamic defense cooperation” with the United States which will mean even closer ties between the two militaries and the establishment of joint training on Guam and Northern Mariana.

    For its part, China has seen escalating tensions with its other neighbors over the disputed islands in the South China Sea. The United States have also deepened their security relationships with Australia, the Philippines, and Vietnam in that area.

    Thus, the announcement last week at the Pentagon and speculation about the deployment of American drones to the Far East, while reaffirming the support of an important American ally in Japan, promises to add to the tensions with China across the region.

  • Despite Defections, Noda’s Coalition Maintains Majority

    The powerful former president of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan, Ichirō Ozawa, resigned from the party on Monday, along with 49 of his followers, in protest to the consumption tax hike that was passed in the lower house of the Diet last week.

    The defections seemingly deal a blow to Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda’s hold on power but in fact they may allow him to get further economic reforms through parliament because the Ozawa coalition turns out to be weaker than expected.

    Ozawa earned the nickname “the destroyer” from his history of orchestrating party resignations over policy disagreements and power plays. There is evidence that the Japanese public and the policymakers in his coalition have grown tired of his tantrums however.

    In a poll taken by Kyodo News last week, after the consumption tax bill was passed, nearly 80 percent of respondents said that they do not have high expectations of any party that Ozawa forms if he splits from the DPJ. 60 percent did not understand why Ozawa and his followers chose to rebel in the first place.

    Surveying the immediate post revolt parliament, the defections did not result in the DPJ losing its ruling majority. In the lower house, the party remains in a coalition with the conservative Kokumin Shinto (People’s New Party). In the upper house, the DPJ is still in the majority.

    Moreover, after looking at the defections more closely, they show more evidence of Ozawa’s fading influence. Thirty-eight of the defections came from the lower house and twelve from the upper house, making up only about half of the Ozawa loyalists in the party. To lower house members who originally resigned changed their mind, saying that they could be more effective influencing tax policy within the ruling party.

    This does not mitigate the threat ahead to Noda and the DPJ majority. The same Kyodo poll showed only 30 percent approval of the Noda government. The possibility that the government collapses is still real if there are additional resignations. Noda could try to govern more from the center in order to appeal to a broader coalition but in so doing he needs to be mindful of not alienating the remaining Ozawa supporters.

    If the government can survive this turmoil and buck the trend of revolving door prime ministers since 2006, Japan will have a chance to enact must needed economic and quite possibly political reforms.

    Noda has argued that Japan must enact legislation to face up to its rising financial problems and avoid a crisis. Its debt to gross domestic product ratio is the highest in the developed world at around 200 percent. Japan’s credit rating was recently downgraded two notches to A+ from AA by Fitch.

    The passing of the sales tax bill was meant as a first serious step toward addressing Japan’s fiscal woes. Polling indicates that the Japanese public agrees, just not now. Amid a global economic crisis, the East Asian country is still struggling to recover from last year’s devastating earthquake and tsunami. Regardless, Noda is wagering his political future on the bill with the possibility of additional reforms coming later.

    The stakes are high. Assuming that there are no other defections, Noda’s DPJ and the opposition will have the opportunity to pass game changing reforms that could reinvigorate Japan’s paralyzed political system and economy.

  • Japanese Parliament Enacts Controversial Sales Tax

    The lower house of Japan’s Diet approved an increase in the nation’s consumption tax on Tuesday, providing a significant breakthrough victory for Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda but also possibly plunging his government in further turmoil.

    Since taking office less than one year ago, the consumption tax bill has been one of Noda’s main policy goals in addressing Japan’s worsening fiscal situation. With its passage in the lower house, followed by its expected approval in the upper house next month, Noda will have notched an important gain in his pledge to reform Japan’s economy and reverse what has been three decades of economic malaise.

    The bill will raise the consumption tax from 5 to 8 percent in April 2014 and to 10 percent in October of the next year. The sales tax was introduced in 1989 at 3 percent and increased in 1997 to 5 percent.

    Though an overwhelming majority of lawmakers voted to approve the change, 57 members of Noda’s ruling Democratic Party of Japan opposed it, opening the prospect of defections which may then force the prime minister to dissolve the Diet and call new elections.

    Such an outcome is not certain though, as analysts predict much would depend on how Noda reacts to lawmakers who voted against the bill, whether he cracks down on them or simply doles out a slap on the wrist.

    Nonetheless, passage of the bill is indicative of the risks that Noda and other lawmakers are willing to take on, in passing a tax hike in a stagnating economy, in order to address Japan’s dire fiscal situation.

    Japan’s debt to gross domestic product ratio is now over 200 percent, the highest among developed economies, with many fearing that the Japanese economy is vulnerable to becoming another Greece, unable to pay its bills with its debt growing out of control. However, Japanese government debt, while huge, is mostly owned domestically with the yield on Japan’s ten year bond currently below 1 percent. Judging by Japan’s borrowing costs, a fiscal crisis is not on the near horizon.

    Passage of the bill, although anticipated, is welcomed by the financial markets all the same because it indicates that lawmakers are taking the initial steps of getting Japan’s fiscal house in order before events can spiral out of control.

    Depending on the political outcome of the vote — whether Noda survives and his Democratic Party remains in the majority — Japan can be expected to join the Trans Pacific Partnership with other East Asian nations and the Americas. Such a move would further strengthen its economic prospects in the long term.

  • East-West Divide on Full Display in East Asia

    Developments this week in Asia highlight in stark contrast the two opposing sides that continue to emerge in the region.

    Although government officials take great pains in downplaying the security implications underlying their policies and dismiss talk of burgeoning alliances aimed at any one country in particular, their actions belie their words.

    On the one side there are the democracies of Asia and on the other, the authoritarian governments of China and Russia.

    First, Japan and India announced what are the first joint exercises by their navies to be held in Japanese waters scheduled for this weekend.

    In a news conference, the chief of staff of Japan’s Maritime Self Defense Forces, Admiral Masahiko Sugimoto, said that he wanted the joint exercises “to contribute to the stability of the Asia Pacific region.”

    As such, among the specific exercises likely to be conducted between the two countries are naval formation training and the rescuing of distressed civilian vessels.

    These are the first joint exercises held exclusively between the Japanese and Indian navies (they have participated previously in multilateral drills) and should be considered within the backdrop of China’s increasing naval buildup as well as closer relations between China and Russia.

    In addition to the joint naval drills, Japan and India are said to be writing a joint Defense Action Plan and considering the possibility of including the United States in a trilateral strategic dialogue.

    This does not portend the formation of a new defensive alliance per se as many in India bristle at their country being drawn into an anti-China alliance or a containment policy by the United States. However, it does underline the mutual interests driving the cooperation between Asian democracies versus the authoritarian governments in the region.

    For their part, relations between China and Russia have been drawing closer ever since the Shanghai Cooperation Organization was formed in 1996.

    During the most recent SCO summit in Beijing on Wednesday, China and Russia announced in a joint statement that they are increasing their strategic partnership. It said that they will continue the adherence to noninterference in each other’s internal affairs, mutual support of each other’s sovereignty, security and win-win reciprocity among other areas.

    However deep Sino-Russian bilateral relations are — as many maintain the two countries detest each other — they clearly have mutual foreign policy interests dictating their cooperation. For instance, in the United Nations, they are opposing foreign intervention in Syria by Western allies and they still have economic interests with Iran.

    Dmitri Trenin, of the Carnegie Moscow Center, wrote in China Daily this week that China’s and Russia’s core foreign policy interest coincide and aim at “promoting a different approach to national sovereignty, one that does not involve intervention and the use of force.”

    In that respect, by drawing a line in the sand against further regime change in the Middle East, Chinese and Russian policy is driven by their own economic, political and security interests. Specifically, by their fear of what more regime change would mean to their ability to control unstable regions in their own borders like the Caucasus, Tibet and Xinjiang.

  • Vietnam Key to Japan’s Southeast Asia Policy

    During the Mekong-Japan Summit held in Tokyo last month, Japan announced additional development aid for and investments in the countries that make up the Mekong Delta region.

    The summit was further evidence of Japan’s goal of developing stronger relations with Southeast Asian states as the Japanese economy is beset with tepid growth and due to the uncertainty and mistrust with the region’s biggest and fastest growing power, China.

    However, the headlines last month overlooked one of the most important outcomes of these meetings thus far, the steady improvement of Japan-Vietnam relations to the level of strategic partnership. (more…)

  • Japan’s Central Bank Tries More Quantitative Easing

    In a move widely expected, but one which ultimately left markets disappointed, the Bank of Japan announced more measures that it hopes will fight off deflationary pressures and spur economic growth as well as weaken the yen versus the dollar to boost exports.

    Japan’s central bank is expanding its government bond buying program by ¥10 trillion ($124 billion) to ¥40 trillion, extending the duration of corporate bonds it buys from two up to three years maturity and increasing the size of its total asset buying program by ¥5 trillion ($61 billion) to ¥70 trillion.

    In addition, the central bank’s policy board voted unanimously to keep interest rates at virtually zero or .1 percent.

    Market reaction was initially positive but when investors digested the news in its totality, sentiment soured. Given the size of Japan’s economy, the amount of easing was seen as fairly tepid. (more…)

  • Britain, Japan Initiate Bilateral Defense Relations

    Japan and the United Kingdom have agreed to an expansion of their defense relationship. Theirs is the first of its kind for Japan with another country besides the United States since the end of World War II.

    In what was the first leg of a four day trip to Asia to promote British trade and investment, Prime Minister David Cameron met his Japanese counterpart Yoshihiko Noda in Tokyo and announced that the two countries would cooperate on identifying defense programs for joint development and production.

    Though no specifics were mentioned, one Japanese newspaper reported that Cameron had mentioned developing helicopters or protective gear against chemical weapons. In a joint statement, the two countries stated they would launch at least one program as soon as possible in addition to developing joint military training and unit to unit affiliations.

    Japan lifted its restriction on exporting weapons and cooperating with other nations in defense programs in December 2011. The ban had in place in accordance with its pacifist constitution and was in effect with all countries except the United States which ostensibly provide for the defense of Japan.

    For Japan, this agreement should be considered in the context of continued economic weakness, domestic politics and the specter of a growing China.

    The economic benefits of greater trade with Britain amid the continuing global economic crisis will be welcomed. Japan’s economy has been struggling to recover amid the slowdown in the European Union and a rising yen.

    Its decision last year to opt for the F-35 stealth fighter by America’s Lockheed Martin over the Typhoon jet made by a consortium of European countries was controversial because Japan chose the more expensive plane during a time of scarce resources and a stagnating economy. Increased contact with the British military may result in more competition for Japanese defense expenditures in future procurement deals.

    As China has become the number one trade partner to countries in Asia, Japanese security planners no doubt join others with concern about China’s long-term goals in the region.

    There is strong apprehension about China using its growing leverage to bully its neighbors in trade and territorial disputes. This fear, and the continuing threat from North Korea, has resulted in deeper cooperation with the West both economically and militarily by Japan and other nations in Asia as evidenced by the much vaunted Asian “pivot” by the United States.

  • Japan Ready to Shoot Down North Korean Missile

    Japan has activated its emergency alert system in anticipation of a long range ballistic missile test by North Korea.

    Japan, South Korea and the United States have deployed navy ships equipped with anti-missile systems in the waters surrounding the Korean Peninsula as it was reported that the North moved to the preparation stage for a long range rocket test.

    The North Korean government has said that it is preparing to launch a weather satellite into space in the coming weeks but Washington and its allies in the region suspect that it is really a cover for a long range ballistic missile test. (more…)

  • The Asian Naval Race

    Last week, the Japanese Ministry of Defense announced they would construct a new class of helicopter destroyer — a typical Japanese military euphemism — as a part of the continuing modernization of Japans military capabilities. Complementing the already spacious Hyuga class, this new class will not only hold helicopters for anti-submarine duties but also be capable of refueling naval squadrons at sea and supporting amphibious operations.

    The existence of ships that in everything but the name constitute light carriers is somewhat controversial, especially since the postwar Japanese constitution expressible forbids the country from possessing “land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential.”

    Yet this article has been traditionally circumvented by the formation of the Japanese Self Defense Force, which, despite its deliberately non-threatening dogma, possessed the world’s seventh largest military budget in 2008. And while Japan is still somewhat bereft of offensive military capabilities, the latest decade has seen its forces partake in numerous expeditions abroad, from participation in the early stages of the occupation of Iraq to chasing pirates off the Somali coast. (more…)