Arms Race in East Asia

Though reluctantly, Japan shows its willingness to participate in the arms race in East Asia. In the mid-term report for National Defense Program Guidelines prepared to release by Ministry of Defense, new assets for dealing with growing tension in Asia-Pacific are included. Looking at current building up of Chinese naval power, there is not much negative opinion against security enhancement. Without a vision of reducing possibility for unexpected collision happens, no one makes a mitigation effort.

The mid-term report proposes Japan Self-defense Force to introduce unmanned areal vehicles, which flies in higher altitude than commercial aircrafts. It is expected to work for reconnaissance against Chinese activity in East China Sea. Yomiuri Shimbun reported that RQ-4 Global Hawk is the most likely for fulfilling the requirement.

The report also recommends the necessity of possessing capability of Marine Corps, which is the mixture of marine and ground power. The capability is expected to be necessary for regaining an island occupied by a foreign country. It focuses on enhancing mobilization capability and troops available for both sea and land. The cooperation with U.S. government or private sectors to enhance security against cyber attacks. Needless to say, those capabilities are for counteracting China.

China is showing active moves in East China Sea. Chinese government established a new organization for coast guard, which is the integration of some agencies in charge of coast guard, fishery or commercial ships. Four ships of the new organization, with repainted new name on its body, were observed on Wednesday in contiguous zone around Senkaku Islands.

Ministry of Defense confirmed the same day Chinese military aircraft, Y8, flew through the strait between Okinawa and Miyako Islands toward Pacific Ocean. Although it returned to mainland China soon, that was the first example for Chinese military aircraft to break the First Island chain in Pacific Ocean through.

Those activities by China undoubtedly work as intimidation to Japan. “That was strange unprecedented action and we will watch closely,” told Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, on his departure to his trip to South Asian countries on Thursday. While the flight was over the area of public sea, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan sent Chinese government a message indicating their concern. It was reported that Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, Akitaka Saiki, is going to visit China next month. But China’s consecutive intimidation is making diplomatic solution difficult. China firstly needs to restrain from ambitious activity in East China Sea, if it is not intending to the course of escalation.