Washington and Tokyo’s old alliance for a new era: Changing strategic priorities and expectations

28 May 2021

Five months into office, the Biden administration is firming up its Indo-Pacific agenda by undertaking proactive steps in conjunction with the region’s prominent stakeholder, Japan. These include Tokyo resolving to bolster its national defence capabilities, further strengthening the US-Japan alliance and Washington, for its part restating its unwavering support for Japan's defence using its full range of capabilities, including nuclear. It recognises the importance of maintaining deterrence, and of enhancing deterrence in maintaining peace and stability in the region.

Though Asia’s contemporary politico-strategic reality is primarily defined by the conflictual binary between Washington and Beijing, the present decade will likely witness shifting regional power balances that will drive security competition between key players across the Indo-Pacific region. It would thus be incumbent upon the Biden administration to preserve the US’ regional primacy that serves as a fundamental building block for Washington to secure its interests and those of its allies. Any slippage of Washington’s pledge towards restoring its alliances with regional allies and partners will prove detrimental for Asia’s future, as a revisionist order led by China, challenges security and stability. Beijing's activities remain inconsistent with the international rules-based order, including the use of economic and military coercion.

Biden’s Asia policy

On 5 January 2021, weeks before leaving office, the Trump administration released a declassified (in part) version of the US Strategic Framework for the Indo-Pacific, which defined Washington's Asia strategy as focused on maintaining the US' strategic primacy in the Indo-Pacific. The document, which is no longer available on the official White House webpage, revealed Washington’s prioritisation of an air-sea denial military strategy vis-à-vis China within the first island chain, encompassing the East China Sea, the South China Sea, and the Yellow Sea.

Any potential reconsideration on the Okinawa bases will likely have a cascading effect on the US-Japan alliance and Tokyo’s national security strategy at large. After all, Okinawa is not merely a peripheral Japanese prefecture, but the lynchpin of American and Japanese strategic positioning in the East China Sea.

Biden's options and scope for any 'radical reset' on policy decisions about China could potentially be choked given the prevalent strategic realities in Asia. These realities hover around China’s persistence in circumventing international rules and norms to gain an advantage, with a seeming objective to dissolve US alliances and partnerships in the region, and exploiting the consequent vacuum and opportunities created by these diminished bonds. To address this, the Biden administration’s Asia policy proposes strengthening the capabilities of key US allies in the region — Japan and Australia — to develop an overarching regional Indo-Pacific strategy.

President Biden’s Asia policy is working towards reviving the US’ Asian alliances — a defining characteristic of the country’s global engagement and leadership since World War Two via an intricate web of military blocs, alliances, and key partnerships. This includes developing awareness and capabilities across the spectrum of possible conflicts by devising and implementing a defence strategy capable of, but not limited to, denying China sustained air and sea dominance in all domains inside the first island chain.

It further includes aiding allies and partners by improving their security postures and military capabilities to ensure strategic independence and freedom. By aligning to a Pacific strategy in which Japan will remain a principal hub as a regionally integrated and technologically advanced pillar of the Indo-Pacific security architecture, Biden’s Asia policy team is seemingly adopting a carry forward approach. The mainstays of this approach include strengthening the capabilities of key US allies in the region, aligning to a Pacific strategy with that of Japan, Australia, and India, and further strengthening the objective of the creation of the Quadrilateral Security Framework.

Key issues between Washington and Tokyo

By hosting Japan’s Prime Minister Suga Yoshihide in April 2021, President Biden renewed the US-Japan alliance as the cornerstone of peace and security in the Indo-Pacific region. Calling for a “strengthening of the Japan-US alliance” and an additional focus on the mutual policy goals “of deepening defence cooperation across all domains” and a wish to “enhance deterrence”, there was a key reference to Japan resolving to “bolster its national defence capabilities".

Though these statements appear promising on the face of it, inherent and intricate challenges remain. Discussions on defence and deterrence primarily, which fall in the realm of military affairs, are considered proscribed in the case of Japan. Tokyo’s defence inadequacies owing to its restraining postwar constitution are perhaps its biggest hurdle in assuming the role of becoming Washington’s equal partner in tangible military terms. The principle of limited exercise of the right of collective defence under the mutual security treaty, which became official policy under a new law enacted when Shinzo Abe was Japan’s prime minister remains insufficient. Even reinterpreted, as it has been, to allow for collective self-defence, Japan’s constitution may still pose obstacles to preemption and effective joint operations.

Another continuing debate inside Japan is the presence of American bases in Okinawa, including the relocation of the Futenma US Marine Corps Air Station. Domestic debates continue to discuss a “radical redistribution” — implying reduction — of United States forces to other parts of Japan and abroad. Okinawa is home to nearly half of the 54,000 American troops stationed in Japan and houses the largest US airbase in the Indo-Pacific region. The larger strategic realities concurrently confronting Japan’s national security interests, with opposing political ideologies and camps, coupled with the Okinawan identity at large, stand at a delicate crossroad that struggles to find a balance between national security and local identities. The dilemma confronts the very fundamentals of Japan’s national security and its military and security alliance with the United States. Critically, this includes the security of the 440 km distance between Okinawa and Senkaku Islands, the maritime dispute for which China relentlessly ups the ante.

The East China Sea is witnessing changes to its security architecture which, in turn, has seen Japan pushed towards politico-military reforms. While these aim to ensure greater levels of self-reliance, the efforts include enhanced legislative foundations for Japan’s security enabling it to respond seamlessly to all levels of crises. This amendment of the Constitutional Revision Referendum Law remains the single most important institutional change required to recast Japan’s security affairs. Although a very thin line divides domestic politics in Japan with its overall strategic thinking and debates on defence policy and balance of regional military power (Tokyo’s political spectrum remains widely divided on this subject). The ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has long viewed the nation’s Constitution as a bitter reminder of Japan's humiliation upon defeat in World War Two. Constitutional revision has been a key issue for the LDP with former Prime Minister Abe, and his successor, Suga, strongly advocating proposed changes to the Constitution, including providing the Self-Defence Forces with the status of a full-fledged military.

Realism and its limits in East Asia

To the political and military realist, the situation as it stands today calls for a robust US-Japan alliance, which is necessary for providing credible deterrence amid activity in the East China Sea which challenges Japan’s peace, stability, and security. Any potential reconsideration on the Okinawa bases will likely have a cascading effect on the US-Japan alliance and Tokyo’s national security strategy at large. After all, Okinawa is not merely a peripheral Japanese prefecture, but the lynchpin of American and Japanese strategic positioning in the East China Sea.

This needs to be understood in the context of US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin and Japanese Defence Minister Nobuo Kishi’s March 2021 meeting which reportedly brought the two nations to an understanding, in principle, to closely cooperate in rescuing Taipei in the event of a major military clash with China. Though there were no specifics on operational aspects, the fact that this emergency scenario could present itself to regional players soon amplifies Beijing’s alarming geostrategic and military manoeuvres in its seemingly endless pursuit of revising the status quo in all its existing territorial disputes, from the East China Sea to the South China Sea and the Himalayan borderlands.

The realist tendencies that constitute the root of Chinese strategic culture are shaping China’s foreign and security policies in East Asia. It is incumbent upon liberal democracies holding vital stakes in Asia to not let go of the solid foundations and convergences they have built at the strategic level over decades.

DISCLAIMER: All views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent that of the 9DASHLINE.com platform.

Author biography

Dr Monika Chansoria is a Senior Fellow at the Japan Institute of International Affairs in Tokyo. Image credit: Flickr/John Carkeet.