If the US is committed to Taiwan’s defence, so too would Japan as it would have to help the US when attacked in Asia.
Tokyo: Japan’s Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso has said what millions of Japanese appear to be thinking, that any attack on Taiwan would be construed as an attack on Japan because the fall of Taiwan would pose existential risks for Japan. The closest Japanese inhabited island to Taiwan, Yonaguni, is only 110 km from Taiwan’s eastern shore. Japan has 6,852 islands within a claimed Exclusive Economic Zone of 4,470,000 square kilometres. Further, Okinawa island has over 50,000 American troops stationed, and is also not far away from Taiwan, as indeed are the Senkaku islands that PRC disputes the sovereignty over. In total, Japan hosts about 57,000 US troops who have exclusive use of 78 facilities and associated land on Japanese territory. For belligerent action, the US has a treaty obligation for prior consultation with the Japanese government; however, that is not a veto, as if there were an imminent attack on Japan, and Japan refused the US use of its bases, the US-Japan Security Alliance would be over.
Japan has not fought a war for 76 years; its military is called the “Self-Defence Force”. While Japan is a heavily armed island with the additional US military umbrella, it is also regarded as a mortal enemy by at least two Asian countries it had invaded in World War II. Ironically, decades of attempts by Japan to finance development projects, share technology, etc., did not succeed to change anything in terms of “hearts or minds” of the main adversary large country. Precisely because of the broad failure of outreach by official channels, the general public appears to be circumspect and disdainful of the inability as well to build informal, academic and other channels to reduce tensions.
While Japanese feel increasingly threatened, the aftermath of World War II saw its Constitution written with the “assistance” of the US occupation forces. Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution reads: “Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes.
“In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerancy of the state will not be recognized.”
The central point is the definition of “self-defence”. This is why Deputy PM Aso has set the ball rolling in terms of thinking on what comprises “self-defence” in the context of the threatened attack by PRC on Taiwan. Noteworthy is that there has been no referendum on whether an attack on Taiwan constitutes a threat to Japan’s survival. Yet if the US is committed to Taiwan’s defence, so too would Japan as it would have to help the US when attacked in Asia. The US’ Taiwan Relations Act 1979 states “to maintain the capacity of the United States to resist any resort to force or other forms of coercion that would jeopardize the security, or the social or economic system, of the people on Taiwan”.
Japan and the US signed on January 19, 1960 the Japan-US Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security, in effect a defence treaty. Article III of the Treaty states that Japan and US will maintain and develop, subject to their constitutional provisions, their capacities to resist armed attack. Under Article V, if the US is attacked, this would be interpreted as affecting Japan’s survival, and therefore Japan will constitutionally be able to use lethal force, and through Article VI the US is granted the use by its land, air and naval forces of facilities and areas in Japan. There are, as well, secret agreements between the US and Japan, especially related to nuclear weapons.
In effect, it will be the US, Japan and Taiwan fighting against PRC if the threatened amphibious landing by PRC is attempted against Taiwan. Further, there will be a flurry of missile strikes on the east coast of PRC that might be devastating. It is highly unlikely that there will be nuclear confrontation since no one is so foolhardy as to do a first nuclear strike. Meanwhile, as is customary, soon after Aso’s reported statement, there was a flurry of “spin” from various quarters to downplay or explain it away.
WHAT DO ‘FOREVER’ AND ‘IN PERPETUITY’ MEAN?
The Japanese Constitution uses the phrase “forever renounce war”. But another important document, the Treaty of Shimonoseki, signed to end the China-Japan war of 1894-1895, used the wording, “China cedes to Japan in perpetuity and full sovereignty of the Pescadores group, Formosa (Taiwan) and the eastern portion of the bay of Liaodong Peninsula (Dalian)”.
What meaning do such phrases and terminology have in the context of existential risks, and parliamentary potential to amend.
The Japanese Constitution’s Article 9 and the US-Japan Security Treaty appear to be contradictory to each other. While the Constitution declares that Japan has renounced war, the US-Japan Treaty has a crystal clear expectation ingrained that Japan will join hands with the US forces if the US is attacked as it attempts to maintain a free and open Indo-Pacidic. There is, naturally, a belief that the Japanese Constitution will be amended, when needed, to conform to the US-Japan defence treaty as to what all Japan would do militarily when both are under attack. While efforts so far to alter Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution have failed, there is widespread conviction that Japan’s Constitution will indeed be amended when there is a risk to Japan’s survival—that can be interpreted as such should Taiwan be attacked.
WHO IS TARO ASO?
Unlike in India where once an individual has been Prime Minister, he/she would not be able to accept any other position in the Cabinet; in Japan, Taro Aso, who was Prime Minister for a year, 2008-2009, has happily served as Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister under PMs Shinzo Abe and now Yoshihide Suga, since 2012. Aso is 81 years old and was educated at Gakushuin and Stanford Universities, and the London School of Economics. Aso’s mother, Kazuko, was the daughter of former Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida, and Aso’s sister was married to a cousin (until he passed away) of now-retired Emperor Akihito. Aso is among the wealthiest Japanese politicians, coming from a family that has had business interests in cement and mining.
Why Taro Aso’s statement attracted so much attention is because of the infinite capacity of many leading Japanese political figures and bureaucrats to waffle, indecisively, and that is matched by the seething anger of ordinary Japanese who know how much they and Japan suffered because of what they deem, on balance, to have been an unnecessary World War II preceded by failed diplomacy. However, there is also great frustration that European colonial powers refused to leave Asia pre-World War II and which sparked the round of misinformation, disinformation and miscommunication that created conditions for the War. This also lends plenty of credence to Indian and Japanese voices who point out that it took the World War II and the defeat for many years of European colonialists who surrendered or fled for all to see through the interior of Asia in the early years of the War in the face of advancing Japanese troops, sometimes joined by the troops of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, for Asian independence movements, including India’s, to finally succeed after centuries of trying. Netaji’s troops were Indian soldiers from surrendered British units who were offered the opportunity of fighting for Indian freedom in the Indian National Army allied with the Japanese Imperial Armed Forces.
Japan is a leading trading nation with vast amounts of goods coming and going from Japanese ports. Inability of its vessels to pass through the Taiwan Straits, for instance, would be detrimental or catastrophic. However, beyond the reality of heightened tensions in the Indo-Pacific, there is also the lurking suspicion that Japanese politicians are gearing up for a presidential contest in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, in September 2021, in order to choose the leader of the Party for the general election that must be held before October 22, 2021. There is therefore jockeying going on for pole position. Some see Taro Aso as also sounding the bugle in that respect.