"Japanese custom is different from that of other countries in that even lower-class people such as farmers, merchants and artisans all treasure a rusty short sword."
-Taira Shigesuke, Code of the Samurai (113)"Formerly, we Japanese were bombarded with the notion that to show your back to the enemy is cowardice, or to retreat is to lack self-respect. Nowadays such views are not so prevalent, but nevertheless they still seem to be deeply rooted in the Japanese psyche and are hard for us to ignore. In fact, the Japanese have never been much good at running away at all."
-Hiroshi Moriya, The 36 Strategies of the Martial Arts (227)
Samurai...
Kamikaze...
Bushido...
The very utterance of any of these words, even without the need for any context, conjures up mental images of a warrior society, steeped in centuries of martial tradition; a society where Eastern concepts of Zen and Buddhism met and intertwined with a chivalric ideal not unlike Europe's Middle Ages, inspiring the imaginations of legions of novelists, screenwriters, playwrights and artists in the last hundred fifty years. For those few elders still among us who remember the last World War, they also conjure up memories of how that society transformed in a single generation from a feudal culture where knighthood was still a part of the government structure to a fully modern and seemingly unstoppable military machine, decimating the Russian Imperial Navy, and bringing China to its knees twice in the space of half a century before going on to challenge the combined might of the United States and the British Empire, 2 nations whose navies (unbeaten in over 400 years and 150 years, respectively) found themselves pushed to their limits contending with the new sun rising in the Far East. For 20 years, Imperial Japan dominated Asia. Spurred on by nationalism and a belief in their own ethnic superiority, wrapped in rhetoric about "liberating Asia from the West", Hirohito's Empire rolled over everything and everyone in their path, resting secure in the "rightness" of their cause. (Fisher, The Atlantic).
...Hmm. Ethnocentrism and using rhetoric about "liberating" the world from Western occupation to justify dominating one's neighbors sounds awfully familiar, doesn't it? But I digress. Anyway, from here everyone knows the story. The unstoppable machine was finally stopped in 1945 and Japan was forced to adopt a pacifist constitution. The martial legacy of the ancient Samurai came to a final and explosive end.
Or did it?
Would it surprise you to note that there are credible analysts who predict Japan, rather than China, will be the dominant power in Asia by 2040 (Friedman, Markets Insider)?
In this article I intend to explore 3 key points. First, that Japan's economic and military might, often overlooked by the world due to Japan's quiet demeanor, make them fully capable of embarking along the path to get there. Second, that the cultural mindset that propelled Japan's rise in the 19th and 20th centuries, contrary to popular belief, is still VERY present, and third, that Xi Jinping's China is doing their damnedest to provoke exactly that response.
The Giant Still Has Giant Fists
"Pilot for pilot, ship for ship, Japan can stand toe to toe with anybody."
-John T. Kuehn, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College (Lendon, CNN)
In a previous entry about the Indo-Pacific Quad Alliance I briefly discussed why Japan's military force, formally pacifist constitution notwithstanding, is one that is not to be trifled with, and some have even been quoted as saying Japan's navy today is more powerful than it was in WW2 (Lendon). Analysts rate them between the 9th most powerful (Hudson, Elite Daily) and 7th most powerful (Khan, Wonderlist) in the world, and I reiterate that they have achieved that status even as a formally pacifist power. Imagine if they became assertive again. For now, Japan trains almost daily with the US, the UK and France (as well as neighboring powers), but one of their most important edges lies in an area that any anime fan can already tell you (in one of those rare moments when anime fans get something right) is one of Japan's most iconic advantages: technological superiority.
To say Japan is high-tech is an understatement. They are not only armed with some of the world's most advanced military technology, including the AEGIS anti-missile system (Lendon) and the Raytheon SM-3 and soon SM-6 missiles as part of an international missile interception net (Asahi Shumbun, "Japan Eyes"), but they played key roles in developing a lot of it. They have a history of purchasing US fighters and, are even licensed to domestically produce them in such cases, such as the F-35 (Cenciotti, The Aviationist), but a lot of nations can say that. What makes Japan stand out is that they are one of only 2 (the other being Israel, as David Axe writes shows in The National Interest) who manage to buy top-of-the-line US jets and then upgrade them (Defense Industry Daily, Japan's Next")! Speaking of purchasing hardware from the US, Japan is currently preparing to buy long-range cruise missiles (Berlinger, CNN), and it has been hinted that the missile of choice will be the AGM-158 JASSM, a cruise missile designed with stealth technology to evade interception (Tarantola, Gizmodo).
Of course, in a discussion of Japan's military technology, it must be noted that they are one of the elite club who have produced a completely home-made stealth fighter (Woollaston, Daily Mail), and that their ability to track submarines was recently put on display, much to the chagrin of a humiliated Chinese government when China attempted to intimidate Japan by sailing a nuclear-launch-capable submarine through Japanese waters (waters which, like most of the rest of the planet's surface, are claimed as "sovereign territory" by the Chinese government) and was not only tracked for two weeks but forced to surface and be photographed (Liu, SCMP). And finally, I presume that anyone who has read any of my articles is already familiar with the Izumo-class "helicopter destroyer (read 'light aircraft carrier')" (Gamble, CIMSEC) and its near-future compliment of F-35B's (Japan Times, "Potential"). Oh, and did I mention that Japan is a "nuclear threshold state (Windrem, NBC News)?" But the main reason why I will say Japan's military is ahead of most, numbers aside, is reaction time.
In a recent article I mentioned the PLA's recent deployment of troops to the Korean border (Lee, *Chosuniblo). What no one seems to notice is that this deployment, which occurred in February of 2018, was the PLA's response to the North Korean crisis in Spring of 2017. That's a delay of more than six months between crisis and response. Japan, on the other hand, mobilized their entire fleet (Mizokami, The National Interest) in response to the Fukushima meltdown in under 18 hours. As anyone who has been in combat can tell you, the ability to go from "back-leaning rest position in the barracks" to "cocked, locked and ready to rock" quickly is everything. Japan has it, China doesn't.
But military power without economic power is a rather shell. Case-in-point: Russia, a military behemoth caged by an economy that is on life support with the plug loose. So the question is "does Japan have the economic clout to become a superpower?"
Giant Coffers as Well
The answer to that question is yes... and this is the point where most economists who have studied Japan for the last two decades are laughing. The inherent weakness we Humans all have is forgetting that what seems like a permanent change to us (a span of a decade or so) is a blip where national trends are concerned. Ergo, the stigma of the so-called "lost years," and Japan's slow growth at the dawn of the 21st century, still lingers in the minds of many economists, even after Japan surprised the world by not having the financial crisis they predicted at the dawn of the 21st century (Friedman, Geopolitical Futures). Also, as China's GDP is now (allegedly, though there are many including this author who don't buy China's figures for an instant) over $11 trillion while Japan lags behind at less than $5 trillion, many economists have dismissed Japan as "yesterday's news." A few facts remain though.
For one, their per-capita GDP dwarfs China, and is ahead of any other country in the region (Wang, Next Big Future).
While the Western media loves to squeal about China's rising GDP (11 trillion USD in 2016, if we're to believe the figures reported by the Chinese government, though the world is finally starting to see that they probably are not as BBC's Stephen McDonell reports), let's do some simple math. 11 trillion dollars worth of goods, produced by a population of 1.7 billion. That comes to a per capita GDP more in line with the Philippines than a major power. Japan, on the other hand, has figures that more closely resemble Singapore and South Korea.
For another, China's income gap is wide enough that it is in danger of sparking a rebellion while Japan barely has such a gap.
It may surprise a lot of Western Leftists who wear shirts saying "Socialism is the answer" to hear this, but China, the poster-child of Communism, right now has more people living below the UN's poverty line than the entire population of the US (Friedman, Markets Insider). Despite their foreign minister's boasts of "lifting people from poverty," it is worthy of note that any family making more than 1920 RMB per month is considered "above poverty level" by the bureau who made that claim. Exchange rates fluctuate a lot but during the five years I've been in China the RMB to USD rate has waved between 6.2 to 1 and 6.8 to 1. Do the math. Japan on the other hand, has absolutely no cause to fear domestic unrest (Friedman, Geopolitical Futures)
For another thing, Japan's foreign direct investment in the West Pacific region exceeds that of China by a huge margin (The Economist, "Japan and China").
Though China has made strides toward closing that gap recently (especially with their "Belt and Road" Initiative), Japan has recently countered with their own answer to OBOR (more on that next). What this means is that if the nations in the region are forced to take sides between Japan and anyone else (for instance, China), their economic stability is dependent on maintaining good relations with Japan.
And finally, let it be noted that Japan has their own answer to the "Belt and Road" Initiative: the Trans-Pacific Partnership (Johnson, Foreign Policy).
Though the US may have pulled out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (and this author is relieved that we did), it did not collapse. For clarification, that graph above reflects the TPP even without the US. After the US bowed out, the nations that felt it was beneficial to them just shrugged and proceeded apace under the renewed leadership of the next largest economy among its members: Japan. Though TPP 2.0 is less than half the size it was with U.S. involvement, it still makes up 13% of global GDP (Ota, Asian Review). It's also worthy of note that Japan took special care to woo Peru and Chile (NHK World, "Japan, Chile"). So much for Xi's wolfishly grinning attempts to seduce Latin America into their "Belt and Road." The region has already found a trading partner.
Oh, and as Ota notes in Asian Review, the participants were kind enough to leave the door open for a US return. While I do not see that happening in the US's present situation (something analogous to the chief surgeon who had to say "let me heal myself first"), perhaps it will happen later. If not, then Japan has basically catapulted themselves into a position of economic hegemony over a ring of eager and willing Pacific satellite states. Personally, I'd say that was the best possible outcome. The nations that will benefit from it can keep it, while the US (who would not have stood to gain much) will sit this one out and leave it to Japan's capable leadership. Go get 'em, tiger!
The Giant Sleeps, But it Lives Yet
"君が代は (Kimigayo wa)
千代に八千代に (Chiyo ni yachiyo ni)
さざれ石の (Sazareishi no)
巌となりて (Iwao to narite)
苔のむすまで (Koke no musu made)ENGLISH TRANSLATION:
"May the reign of the Emperor
continue for a thousand, nay, eight thousand generations
and for the eternity that it takes
for small pebbles to grow into a great rock
and become covered with moss."
-"Kimigayo," Japan's National Anthem
There is a commonly held perception that the will of the Japanese was somehow broken in 1945 when the Instrument of Surrender was signed. The Chinese, for example, call the country "Xiaoriben (literally 'Little Japan,' but by attaching the xiao character to the name itself they have made it a derogatory term roughly akin to a racial slur)," and refer to Japan frequently in official statements as a "US puppet." Frankly, this makes me laugh almost as much as the rhetoric of "America in retreat" does. For starters, any claims that Japan "lost its warrior spirit" after the 1945 surrender accord would certainly come as a shock to Hiro Onoda, a Japanese officer who was not near enough to a radio to hear his emperor's command and consequently fought on until 1974 (no, I don't have the 4 and the 7 reversed there; he hid in the Philippines and kept fighting for 29 years after the end of the war) before finally surrendering his sword to Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos (Russell, War History Online). But rogue officers demonstrating misplaced determination aside, the reality is that Japan remains very much the same today as it was 100 years ago, only minus the ethnocentrism (they've delegated the role of "racial supremacist asshole of Asia" to China, you see). Let's start with some background. During the Meiji Restoration, a period stretching roughly from Commodore Perry's entrance to Edo until the end of WW2, Japan held an ideology wherein their emperor was viewed as a god (Fisher). When defeat seemed inevitable, not only was every soldier in Japan ready to fight to the end or commit suicide to deny the enemy the pleasure, but every civilians stood ready to do the same, "Iike shattered jewels."
Here is the subtle point that is frequently missed. Japan's immediate and shocking transformation from a military-driven state to a pacifist state, happened because that's how the Japanese emperor commanded it to happen. Emperor Hirohito's radio address to the Japanese called on them to "endure the unendurable," saying this was necessary "for the peace and common prosperity of all nations." This "peace and common prosperity," in that radio address, was declared to be the new "Holy Mission" of the Japanese Empire. That phrase "Holy Mission" was the same phrase used to guide the Nationalistic ideology that led Japan fanatically into WW2, and because it was the emperor's command, the Japanese people have pursued peace with the same robust determination ever since. If you'll pardon a metaphor, the people never stopped being soldiers of the emperor. They just got new orders from their emperor, and they have pursued those orders with the same determination as their old ones.
Oh, and fun fact: Japan still has an emperor. It's Hirohito's son, Akihito. His power is largely symbolic now (the government rests mostly on the shoulders of the Prime Minister), but if you think his throne is not taken seriously, go to Tokyo and let the locals hear you insult the emperor. On second thought, don't. Not unless you have your Last Will and Testament written.
I'm not saying Japan is still guided by the murderous fanaticism of the early 20th century. That period, despite China's ignorant blustering about Asia's alleged historical fear of Japan (Seidel, News Corps Australia), actually lasted a comparatively short time (Friedman, Geopolitical Futures) compared to China's years of Imperialism under the Sinocentric Tributary System. I'm also not saying the presence of a monarch automatically means the country is prone to go off on a rampage. If that were true, we'd have to worry about Spain, the UK, Thailand, and technically Australia and Canada if you read the fine print of their constitutions, just to name a few.
What I'm saying is this. Imagine the Emperor of the Chrysanthemum Throne issued an address today to the same Japanese population who conquered half of a continent for their emperor, and then overnight transformed their military machine into a monument to peace on the command of the same emperor. It would be something like this (my weak grasp of the Japanese language notwithstanding) "Kioski! We have long dedicated ourselves to peace, but the day has come when others do not share our commitments. The Land of the Rising Sun is now threatened. Chugoku seeks to revive the Tributary System. This, we will not allow! Gi tu obi mawatsu, and arm yourselves!" Do you think it would take Japan long to re-arm? Take another look at the article I linked about how long it took Japan to mobilize their fleet after Fukushima before you answer.
Xi is Determined to Wake the Giant
"If [Japan] loses access to the sea lanes, it loses everything. If trouble arises and it lacks the option of turning inward, Japan is far more likely to become assertive again."
-George Friedman, The Next Decade (180)
Okay. This article is already long enough to make me think it should have been broken into parts, so I'll keep this brief. There are not many things that could make Japan become assertive again. They have endured bullying and threats from China over disputed islands (and I am giving China a lot of excess credit when I say "disputed" because China's tendency to claim everything they lay eyes on is theirs has cast doubt upon any and every claim they ever make) (National Turk, "Senkaku Islands"). They have been quietly patient while China had the condescending audacity to "rebuke" them (the patronizing choice of phrase came in China's own words) for opening a museum showcasing the legitimacy of Japan's claim to the same islands (South China Morning Post, "China Rebukes"). They have endured the pompous arrogance of China trying to tell them what military assets they are and are not allowed to have in accordance with their own constitution, forgetting that it is Japan who can amend that Constitution (Shim, UPI). They have held their tongue as China shrieked about Japanese Prime Minister Abe being "a militarist, revisionist and an anti-China leader determined to contain China hand in hand with the U.S. to prevent the rightful great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and people," accusing Japan of being part of their mythological "US-led Anti-China conspiracy," which, as I've stated before, never existed until recently when Xi himself created it (Jennings, Forbes). They have even gritted their teeth and continued "enduring the unendurable" as China, who has ground the entire region (including Japan for a while) under their egotistical heel for centuries under the Sinocentric Tributary system, actually had the gall to tell Japan "Asia is afraid of your power because of your aggressive history," as I've already mentioned (Seidel, News Corps Australia Network). They have, as their emperor commanded, "endured the unendurable." It's highly unlikely that insults from a band of swaggering gorillas like the CCP would ever make them re-arm. Even the threat from North Korea, while it had them on edge, has only been enough to make them "reinterpret" their pacifist constitution, but not outright amend it. It would take a lot to make them decide to break out from under the U.S. defensive umbrella.
It's not that they are happy with their state of US-dependency (in truth they've never been comfortable with it), nor is it that they lack the means to strike out on their own, but Japan is a mercantile state and building their own maritime power costs money. As long as the US Navy still keeps the sea lanes (which Japan needs for her very survival) open, Japan doesn't have a need for any naval power other than defense (which, as I've established, she already has in abundance).
But that's just it: as long as the sea lanes are open.
Japan needs oil. Any industrial nation does. And the islands of Japan are notoriously lacking in fossil fuels or mineral resources. So to get them, Japan has to import them. And the sea lane through which Japan imports nearly every drop of their oil is suddenly a minefield of PLA bases. Japan can't have that. China has not made any effort to hide their vendetta against Japan over Japan's "aggression." They have been quite open about their belief that Japan has not suffered enough to make up for WW2. I've already commented ad nauseum on the hypocrisy of that claim, but apparently China, who believes themselves to be the supreme arbiters of justice and injustice in the cosmos, who tells nations every day "put aside the past and move on," believes that the rules are somehow different when the "Glorious Middle Kingdom" is involved. And given that they have already demonstrated their willingness to use economic coercion (for example, the Lotte Mart incident with South Korea) and even threats of force (for example, the Philippines) over anything that harms a hair of their sensitive egos, if Japan was at their mercy like that it is inconceivable that the narcissistic Zhonghua barbarians would refrain from gleefully exacting whatever penance their childish whims called for from "xiaoriben." As an example of how China can dehumanize a population look at what they are doing to the Philippines, helping themselves to massive swaths of Philippine territory and then "compensating" the Philippines by "offering the opportunity" to come to China and work in horrendous, inhumanly humiliating conditions.
Japan is not about to let that happen to them.
So what happens next?
Well, that's partly up to the United States. China is going to be China. There's no avoiding that. The notion that China would ever grow up and join the civilized world is fading quickly thanks to Xi Jinping, and it's now apparent that Xi and his puppet Kim are going to poke Japan with a stick as often as they can. The US can't prevent that. What we can do, is show up so Japan does not feel quite as threatened. If you'll pardon a metaphor, we can't stop them from waking the bear, but we can make sure the bear doesn't wake up surrounded and feel the need to go tearing out of its cave and shred everything in sight.
In essence, as long as the United States puts her money where her mouth is about confronting China in the West Philippine Sea and keeping it open, Japan will have no reason to beef up her military (well, any more than she already has, since part of the US's plan is a four-sided alliance that includes Japan, ironically enough). And while it seems that the US is getting ready to do that, Japan has too much at stake to settle for "seems." Their entire existence is on the line. If they even begin to catch a whiff of suspicion that the US is even considering making some kind of accommodation with China and letting China have the Spratly Shoals or the Fiery Cross Reef, then Japan will take matters into her own hands. As George Friedman said it in his article for Geopolitical futures, "once more a change in Japanese direction will depend on the United States. If the U.S. changes interests or falters or becomes hostile, Japan will, with sincere regret, change direction again. It will change with the same national unity that has been its strength ever since its industrial revolution."
Works Cited
Books
Friedman, George. The Next Decade: Empire and Republic in a Changing World. New York: Random House Publishers. 2011.
ISBN 978-0-3074-7639-5
Moriya, Hiroshi. The 36 Strategies of the Martial Arts. Trans. William Scott Wilson. Boston: Shambala Publishers, 2013
ISBN 978-1-59030-992-6ISBN 978-1-59030-992-6
Shigesuke, Taira. Trans. Thomas Cleary. Code of the Samurai: a Modern Translation of the Bushido Shoshinshu of Taira Shigesuke. Hong Kong: Tuttle Publishing. 1999.
ISBN 978-0-8048-3190-1
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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3553236/Japan-succeeds-test-flight-stealth-fighter-jet.html#ixzz59bmJbvNB