Japan's Security Renaissance by Oros Andrew L;

Author:Oros, Andrew L; [Oros, Andrew L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: oros17260, HIS021000, HISTORY / Asia / Japan, POL011000, POLITICAL SCIENCE / International Relations / General
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: 2016-04-10T04:00:00+00:00

Source: Adapted from Ministry of Defense, Defense of Japan 2014, 151–52.

Note: Some of the values are listed as approximate in Defense of Japan 2014.

a Subset of combat aircraft.

Finally, the 2013 NDPG links these conceptual and capabilities developments by seeking to further streamline defense institutions and practices to provide for the truly seamless operating posture envisioned in the 2013 national security strategy.20

Additional Security-Related Legislation

Beyond these core defense policy innovations of Abe’s first year in office, the Abe government implemented a series of other policy changes to long-standing practices related to national security in an effort to effect a more “proactive pacifism”—in particular, relaxation of arms export restrictions beyond that implemented by the DPJ government in 2011, new guiding legislation on the use of outer space for defensive purposes beyond relaxations implemented in 2009 at the end of the last LDP-led government, and a new charter to guide Japan’s ODA policy to allow for more seamless coordination of Japan’s development assistance and security capacity building. Each of these adaptations to past practice helps to implement the broader strategy set out in the national security strategy and illustrates the renaissance in contemporary Japanese security practice.

Contrary to the shorthand often seen in the media, Japan still very much has strict arms export restrictions, though they are framed in a more proactive way as “Three Principles on Transfer of Defense Equipment and Technology.”21 The first principle casts a wide net of areas where weapons and technology may not be exported—including to countries currently involved in a conflict that the United Nations is involved in addressing and countries under sanctions. The second principle, “overseas transfer of defense equipment and technology may be permitted in such cases as the transfer contributes to active promotion of peace and international cooperation,” may seem counterintuitive to those not used to long-standing Japanese discourse on security22—in other words, Japanese firms should export weapons only to promote peace. This second principle adds that such exports should also promote Japan’s national interests, another high bar for a private firm. Japan is unlikely to become a major arms exporter because of such remaining restrictions as well as of the internal nature of the defense industry in Japan, which is highly diffuse across companies that focus on nondefense business and which currently lacks a competitive cost structure and international marketing savvy.23 Similarly, in outer space policy the changes made to past restrictions do allow for some increased defensive use of outer space for activities like satellite surveillance at military-grade resolution, but Japan remains bound by the Outer Space Treaty of 1967—and its own antimilitarist attitudes—which prohibits space-based weapons.24

Japan’s new ODA charter, adopted in February 2015, also continues to stress long-standing practices, which include an expressed belief in the connection between peace and development.25 In the latest iteration, this connection is made more explicit and allows for some development assistance that contributes to capacity building that may also have a limited military use—such as a civilian airport or seaport also used by military aircraft and vessels. Thus, a greater flexibility of thinking about new approaches is evident.

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