Sina Delenda Est

Japan To Get First Aircraft Carriers Since World War II

By H I Sutton

Japan is set to deploy its first aircraft carriers since World War II. 

The Japanese Navy will modernize two helicopter destroyers into de facto aircraft carriers. 

This will increase the number of carrier operators in the Asia-Pacific region.

Japanese Navy carrier Izumo, photographed in 2016. She will be modified to support F-35 jets.

Historically the Imperial Japanese Navy placed a heavy emphasis on aircraft carriers. 

The Hōshō, when she was commissioned on December 27, 1922, was the first purpose built aircraft carrier in the world. 

Going into the Battle of Midway in June 1942 Japan had the largest aircraft carrier fleet in the world. 

This did not last. 

By the end of the war many carriers had been sunk, mostly by the U.S. Navy. 

After the war the remaining carriers were scrapped and Japan entered a period of disarmament, adopting a Constitution in 1947 that forbade the maintenance of forces that could wage war.
Amid the Korean War and Cold War, with U.S. support, military capabilities were rebuilt for the purpose of self-defense, which was deemed constitutional.
Recently Japan’s neighbors have began acquiring carriers. 

China is building a fleet of large aircraft carriers. 

One of them, Shandong, sailed through the Taiwan Strait on November 17 with fighter jets on deck. The passage, which could be interpreted as a show of force, was reportedly trailed by U.S Navy and Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) vessels. 

South Korea is also planning its first jet-equipped carriers.
Against this backdrop the interpretation of the war-renouncing Article 9 of the Constitution has shifted under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. 

Japan will not have aircraft carriers, but it will have Multi-Purpose Operation Destroyers. 

To a lay person the difference is only in the name. 

Two current ‘Helicopter Destroyers’ will be modified to carry F-35B fighters.Actually, the return to de facto aircraft carriers has been a multi-step journey, at least in naval architecture terms. 

Starting in the Cold War, Japan built extra-large destroyers equipped with more helicopters than those of other nations. 

The Shirane class were 7,500 tons and could carry 3 Sea King helicopters. 

Other countries' destroyers could carry one or two helicopters. 

But there was no suggestion that they might carry jet aircraft.
The ships which followed them were in a different league altogether. 

Euphemistically called 'helicopter destroyers,' these have the look and feel of flat-top aircraft carriers. And at 19,000 tons they are larger than some of the light carriers in service with other navies. 

But the biggest was yet to come. 

The follow-on Izumo class comes in at 27,000 tons. 

It is these 2 ships which are slated to receive F-35B Lightning-II jets.
Japan formally announced the purchase of 42 Lockheed Martin F-35B jets in August. 

These are the jump jet version, capable of short take-off and vertical landing (STOVL) operations. This allows them to operate aboard Japan’s new carriers. 

The air force already operates the larger F-35A model which is not capable of landing on the new carriers. 

By the time the -B models enter service, probably in the 2020s, the carriers should be ready to receive them.
Japan’s carriers will be smaller and fewer than China’s, but they slow the pace by which the JMSDF is being overtaken by the rapidly modernizing Chinese fleet.

The Japan-China rivalry is playing out in Cambodia's election

• Japan's support of Cambodia's general election is a strategic maneuver to counter Chinese influence in the developing state.
• Tokyo's actions are a direct backing for Hun Sen's authoritative regime.
• Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe may ultimately need to decide between maintaining economic power in Cambodia or upholding democratic standards.

By Nyshka Chandran

July 8, 2018: An election poster with images of Heng Samrin, Honorary President of the Cambodian People's Party, and Prime Minister Hun Sen, in Siem Reap.

Cambodia's general election on July 29 has become a proxy theater for competition between China and Japan as the two vie for influence in the Southeast Asian state.
As Phnom Penh's largest foreign investor and economic benefactor, the world's second-largest economy has donated $20 million in polling booths, laptops, computers and other equipment to the National Election Committee, an agency that supervises elections, according to the Associated Press. Tokyo, also one of Cambodia's top donors, has provided over 10,000 ballot boxes worth $7.5 million, Reuters reported.
Those contributions aren't surprising since both Asian heavyweights hold historically deep ties with the frontier economy. 

But Tokyo, concerned about Beijing's rising influence across Southeast Asia, is likely acting with strategy in mind.
"Japan’s economic footprint is starting to be dwarfed by the scale of Chinese investment in the country, through Belt and Road projects, and Chinese political influence," said Champa Patel, head of the Asia-Pacific program at London-based policy institute Chatham House. 

For Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, "maintaining relations with Cambodia will be to act as a counterweight to Chinese influence in the country and the wider region," she continued.
Chinese dictator Xi Jinping's administration has offered Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen's government billions in development assistance and loans through bilateral frameworks and the continent-spanning infrastructure program known as Belt and Road. 

That, in turn, has produced a flood of Chinese commercial ventures in the country, including economic zones, casinos and industrial parks.
Beijing's economic leverage is also believed to have translated into political clout: During a 2016 ASEAN meeting, Phnom Penh was acting as an agent of China when it blocked mention of an international court ruling that rejected Beijing's territorial claims in the South China Sea in the group's official communique.
Meanwhile, security-research firm FireEye announced last week that it found evidence of a Chinese hacking team infiltrating computer systems belonging to Cambodia's election commission, opposition leaders and media. 

It wasn't immediately clear if any data was breached, but FireEye said the episode likely provided the Chinese government with visibility into Cambodia's election and government operations.
Amid those developments, Japan is looking to ramp up its presence in the developing state — the two nations signed a grant and loan agreement totaling over $90 million in April.
"Japan's foreign policy does seek to counter China's influence in Cambodia," said Paul Chambers, lecturer and special advisor on international affairs at Thailand's Naresuan University: "Japan, under Abe, wants to show Cambodia that trade and investment matter more for it than human rights — a consideration which has been of prime focus among Western countries."
Japan's support of the July 29 election translates to direct backing for Hun Sen's authoritarian regime.
The vote has been called a democratic sham amid the absence of the country's main opposition faction, the Cambodia National Rescue Party, which was dissolved by the Supreme Court on government orders late last year. 

Because that party is unable to participate, Hun Sen and his ruling Cambodian People’s Party are likely to emerge victorious.
Hun Sen, a former Khmer Rouge commander, is the world’s longest-serving premier. 

His 33-year rule has been marked by numerous allegations of corruption, politically motivated prosecutions and crackdowns on civil liberties.
The United States and the European Union have suspended funding to the National Election Committee, which is meant to be independent, but is widely believed to be controlled by the ruling party. 

The United Nations, meanwhile, has warned that the election won't be "genuine" and urged Phnom Penh to lift a ban on the CNRP, which is advising Cambodians to boycott the vote.
According to CNRP Deputy President Mu Sochua, Tokyo should withdraw its cooperation: "Cambodia needs to move forward, and it can only do so with democracy ... that's why we continue to explain to Japan that the only chance to help Cambodia is to side with democracy."
The CNRP has tried reaching out to Beijing to explain its argument, but so far has been unsuccessful, Sochua told CNBC over the phone.
"To support Hun Sen is to support dictatorship and with dictatorship, no government can protect their investments," she said, adding that "Hun Sen will keep giving more concessions to Chinese companies, so if Japan wants to protect its investments, it should stay on the side of democracy."
In recent public comments, Japanese officials have urged Phnom Penh to hold free and fair elections, but didn't touch on on the government's human rights violations. 

Japan's embassy in Cambodia told CNBC that Tokyo's assistance was aimed at enhancing the credibility of the electoral process.
"Although Japan supports the technical and logistical aspects of the electoral process, they are not, at least in their own view, necessarily endorsing the legitimacy of the election itself," echoed Deth Sok Udom, a political science professor at Phnom Penh's Zaman University.
Ultimately, Abe may find he has to choose between maintaining economic power in Cambodia or upholding democratic standards.
"I suspect that Japan would opt for the first strategy," Chambers said.

Chinese aggressions: Japan to bolster military base on island idyll

Island of Ishigaki is set to be the site for a substantial deployment of hardware and troops
By Kim Sengupta Ishigaki

A Japanese Self-Defence Forces' vehicle carrying units of Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) missiles leaves a port on Japan's southern island of Ishigaki, Okinawa prefecture.

If war is to break out, then Ishigaki would be the frontline. 

This is the island where Japan feels the most under threat from China and the place it will be installing missiles and troops amid clashes at sea, accusations and recriminations.
While international attention is on whether Games diplomacy in South Korea, with the presence of Kim Jong-un’s sister and henchmen present for the Winter Olympics, will lead to peace breaking out, tension between China and its neighbours have continued to grow.
Throughout last year, while Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un traded public insults, Beijing has been quietly bolstering its presence on the extraordinary chain of artificial isles it has been building in waters near and far taking advantage of what it calls "the strategic window of opportunity.”

Three airfields have been put into its seven bases in the disputed Spratly chain. 

There, and elsewhere, aerial photographs from the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington reveal facilities awash with fortified shelters for warships, hangers for aircraft and radar, underground bunkers and missile emplacement positions.
The Chinese calls a series of archipelagos the "first island chain of defence” stretching in an arc from the South China Seas to Russia’s Kurils. 

For Japan the most vulnerable point is the Senkaku, to which Beijing has laid claims with surrounding isles, in particular Ishikagi 90 nautical miles away seen as the obvious targets.
Hundreds of fishing boats from China, escorted by coastguard ships, or, at times, warships have been in the seas leading, at times, driving back Japanese fishermen leading to clashes with Japanese coast guards. 

There has been a recent spate of incursions into airspace by Chinese warplanes and the appearance for the first time, a few weeks ago, of a nuclear attack submarine in these waters.
The Japanese government are now finalising the deployment of missiles batteries, anti-aircraft and anti-ship, radar installations and around 600 troops to Ishigaki.
Final details are likely to emerge next month. 

The Independent understands the surface to air missiles are likely include American made MIM-104 Patriots capable of taking down Chinese ballistic missiles with enemy vessels being targeted by SSM-1s which carry up to 500lbs of high-explosives and have range of over a hundred miles. 

There are future plans for a joint missile system involving Japan and Western Europe to be installed in a project involving the British, French and Italian MBDA and Mitsubishi Electrics.
China’s attempt at ocean hegemony has led to international reaction.
The US Defence Secretary General James Mattis stressed during a visit to Tokyo that the Washington is fully committed to backing Japan over the Senkakus. 

On a broader basis, the US has been sending warships through the China Seas to underline the right to freedom of navigation. 

The British Defence Secretary, Gavin Williamson, has announced that HMS Sutherland, an anti-submarine ship, will be sailing through the South China Seas. 

The navies of America, India, Japan and Australia, will be holding naval manoeuvres.

HMS Sutherland

The tiny Senkakus were used in the past by a small Japanese community scratching a living out of bonito fishing and collecting albatross feathers. 

But they were then abandoned had been lying unpopulated for 78 years with basically scientific and geographical exploration groups the only visitors.
That these five islets and three barren rocks, with a total area of just seven kilometres, has become a potential flashpoint for a conflict between two modern industrialised states may be reminiscent of the Jorge Luis Borges’s view that Britain and Argentina going to war over the Falklands was “like two bald men fighting over a comb”.
In fact, there was little interest in the islands, apart from its fishing grounds, until an international survey in 1969 concluded large undersea deposits of oil and natural gas. 

The following year China began its claims of ownership.
The steady growth of Chinese presence in the seas, say the Japanese, has damaged the country’s fishing industry. 

Many of Beijing’s coast guard vessels are rebranded warships and the crews of Chinese 'fishing' boats are not fishermen at all, but peoples’ militia in disguise out to provoke. 

The confrontation means that Ishigaki fishermen like Yukihidi Higa can no longer catch the red snappers and groupers they used to off the Senkakus.
“Of course it has affected my earnings, I can no longer go there because of the Chinese and their big ships” he stated. 

“ But they are not just taking the fish, most of the coral from the sea has been stripped over the years, this is not good for marine life.”
The missile deployment comes at a time of great controversy in Japan as premier Shinzo Abe seeks to revise Japan’s post-Second World War pacifist constitution mandated, he holds, by a strong election victory. 

Last month, his cabinet approved an increase of 1.3 per cent in the annual military budget raising it to a record $ 45.8 billion for the year.
The military deployment is also going to be a key factor in Ishigaki’s municipal election next month. “This is certainly going to be part of my campaign. It is of course a very important topic and it needs to be discussed fully and the city will have to agree on providing the land ” said Yoshitaka Nakayama, the mayor.
“I am in favour of the deployment by our Self Defence Forces (SDF). We have seen the Chinese behave very aggressively, they are coming into our territorial waters, our fishermen have been prevented from fishing, our coastguards are having lots of problems, we have seen their planes fly into our airspace. Putting the missile systems here will act as a warning, it may stop Chinese aggression and a conflict in the future.”
The military was a key issue in the election in Nago, the capital of the Okinawa prefecture, last week in the defeat of the incumbent Mayor Susumu Inamine, by Taketoyo Toguchi, a candidate backed by Mr Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).
The Mayor had been an opponent of a US Marines base remaining in Okinawa. 

Mr Toguchi wanted them to stay and backed a plan by Washington and Tokyo to relocate it from a central urban area to one less populated.
For Yoshiyuki Toita, the secretary general of the Yaeyama Defence Association, the result showed “that attitudes are changing: people are beginning to see the dangers posed by China, which is following an expansionist policy. If the Japanese government and the SDF do nothing it will send the wrong message and the Chinese will feel even bolder.”
The defence associations across Japan are private groups which claim to be independent of government. 

Mr Toita, however, is a member of Mayor Nakayama’s campaign and will be spreading his message in support of the military deployment.

"This is about security. We have achieved good things here in Ishigaki and we must protect this community and Japan.”
Many are apprehensive, however, that the achievements may be put at risk by militarisation. Subtropical Ishigaki, with its mountains and mangrove forests, beaches and birdlife, has, somewhat surprisingly for a place not widely known, topped TripAdvisor’s “Destinations on the Rise” in the Travellers’ Choice awards.
“We have definitely seen a steady rise in tourism and this growth has taken place despite this place being so remote. The new airport has been a great plus factor” said Hiro Uehara, the owner of a bar and restaurant.-
Around a dozen coast guard ships are the current line of defence. 

Captain Kenichi Kikuchi, in command of the Taketomi, wanted to stress that they do their utmost to avoid confrontations. 

“We are careful , we are careful because we do not want to escalate matters and also have to mind that the Chinese Navy ships as well their coastguard vessels tend to be large” he said. 

“ But we also do our duty and deal with problems when they arise and make sure we are not outnumbered by the Chinese.”-
What will happen when the missiles and troops are deployed? 

 “That is a decision for the Japanese government and the Self Defence Forces. They will decide what is right. But it could become very interesting.”-

Trump warns China it could face ‘big problem’ with ‘warrior nation’ Japan over North Korea

BY JESSE JOHNSON

Taking a page from former U.S. leader Richard Nixon, current President Donald Trump has warned China that it must do more to rein in North Korea’s nuclear ambitions or face “a big problem” with “warrior nation” Japan.
“Japan is a warrior nation, and I tell China and I tell everyone else that listens, I mean, you’re gonna have yourself a big problem with Japan pretty soon if you allow this to continue with North Korea,” Trump said during an interview on the Fox News program “The Ingraham Angle” on Thursday, a day before departing on his first Asia tour as president.
It was unclear what the U.S. leader was referring to, in terms of a “big problem,” but Trump had suggested during his successful campaign for president that he would be open to Japan acquiring its own nuclear weapons.
China has looked warily at recent moves to loosen postwar constraints imposed on Japan’s military and has long been suspicious of Tokyo’s large plutonium stockpile.
In February 1972, as part of his successful efforts to normalize ties with Beijing, Nixon took a similar tack with then-Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai, who was anxious of Japanese remilitarization, claiming that restraining Tokyo was also in the U.S. interest, according to minutes of their meeting fully declassified in 2003.
Trump was scheduled to kick off his Asia tour in Japan from Sunday, when he was to meet with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who has joined the U.S. president in his “maximum pressure” approach to nuclear-armed North Korea.
He will also visit China from Wednesday to Thursday and meet Xi Jinping.
Trump said in Thursday’s interview that Xi had been “pretty terrific” on North Korea and that “China is helping us,” but is widely expected to urge Beijing to do more on the issue.
Regional tensions have soared over Pyongyang’s ballistic missile and atomic programs, which in recent months have seen it test long-range missiles and carry out its sixth nuclear blast. 

It has also lobbed two intermediate-range missiles designed to carry nuclear payloads over Hokkaido, stoking concern in Tokyo.
Still, experts say that any push by Japan to build nuclear weapons currently remains unlikely given the low levels of public support and because of the ensuing arms race in Asia it would almost assuredly unleash.
“The potential for Japan and South Korea to develop nuclear weapons … is extremely remote … in the near-medium term,” said J. Berkshire Miller, a senior visiting fellow with the Japan Institute of International Affairs in Tokyo.
Trump’s warning “seems more of a leverage threat rather than anything tangible,” he added.
More immediately, Japan under Abe has moved to slowly unshackle itself from constraints imposed after its loss in World War II, including by passing security legislation that has set the stage for U.S. and Japanese troops to work more closely together than ever.
And with tensions on the Korean Peninsula hitting recent highs, Abe has overseen a more muscular response out of Tokyo to that crisis, often dispatching the Self-Defense Forces for joint exercises with the U.S. as part of his push to make them a better and more capable military.
Miller said Trump’s “allusion to the idea of potential remilitarization in Japan” runs counter to the usual terminology around the strength of the U.S.-Japan alliance.
“I am not sure there is much strategic thinking behind the remarks, rather it is another display of Trump’s usual shock and awe style of leveraging positions” on China, Miller said.

Holy Alliance

India, Japan Expected to Increase Maritime Activity Aimed at China
By Ralph Jennings
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, right and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi wave during the ground breaking ceremony for high speed rail project in Ahmadabad, India, Sept. 14, 2017.

TAIPEI, TAIWAN — India and Japan, anxious to keep Asia’s dominant power Beijing in check, may send patrols into the contested South China Sea or sell arms to rival states following a pair of high-level meetings this month, experts say.
Both Asian countries could sell or donate more weapons to China’s rival maritime claimants, such as Vietnam, so they can build a defense against Beijing.

Japan may also use coast guard or naval ships to patrol the sea to show it’s open despite China’s claim to some 90 percent of it.
India will probably continue joint exploration with Vietnam for oil and gas under the 3.5 million-square-kilometer sea, analysts say.
“Delhi and Tokyo have both been stepping up their capacity-building efforts in the region, with Japan focused mainly on providing patrol vessels and training for Southeast Asian states and India selling arms to and training the Vietnamese navy,” said Gregory Poling, director of the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative of the American think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Two High-Level Talks in a Week
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe met counterpart Narendra Modi in India Sept. 13-14 to discuss “enhancing maritime security cooperation,” according to a foreign ministry statement from Tokyo.
On Monday their foreign ministers met at the United Nations with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to talk about freedom of navigation and respect for international law, the Indian external affairs ministry spokesman said.
Analysts understood both discussions to be aimed at China, including its expansion in the contested sea since 2010.
Neither India nor Japan claims the South China Sea, but the two have warily eyed China’s ascent to being the largest economy and military power in Asia. 

And despite the meeting with Tillerson in New York, the U.S. government is seen as preoccupied by the militarization of North Korea.

Arms for China’s Smaller South China Sea Claimants
Japan as well as India could sell more weapons to the four Southeast Asian states whose coastal waters overlap China’s claim to the sea, analysts say.
Japan indicated in January it would give Vietnam six patrol boats to help with maritime security. Vietnam has clashed three times since the 1970s with Chinese vessels. 

In August last year, Japan began giving the Philippines 10 coast guard boats through a soft loan agreement.
India has talked to Vietnam about supplying it BrahMos supersonic cruise missiles, which are co-developed with Russia, among other missiles, leading a state-backed Chinese media outlet earlier this year to accuse India of causing trouble. 

India in September 2016 offered Vietnam a $500 million line of credit to buy defense hardware, including patrol boats.

Sending Patrol Missions into the Disputed Sea
Japan may test China with low-key patrols of the sea, said Le Hong Hiep, research fellow with the ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore. 

In May it sent an Izumo helicopter-carrying warship into the sea for port visits in Southeast Asia en route to joint exercises with the United States.
“What they have done is they send a ship to Gulf of Aden and on the way back they do kind of patrol in the South China Sea and do port calls to Vietnam, et cetera,” Le said. 

“But they do not intentionally design any kind of (freedom of navigation) program in the South China Sea as it may provoke China.
“But in the future I’m not sure, because Japan obviously has some interest in containing China’s ambitions in the South China Sea as well,” he said.
Patrols would show the sea, also packed with fisheries, is open to other countries despite Beijing’s claim of sovereignty to the waterway off its south coast. 

China has strengthened control and angered rival claimants by using landfill to build artificial islands ready for combat aircraft and radar systems.
Brunei, Malaysia, Vietnam and the Philippines claim all or part of the same sea.
India and Japan might patrol the sea together with coast guard ships, said Andrew Yang, secretary-general of the Chinese Council of Advanced Policy Studies think tank in Taiwan. 

They would occasionally send naval vessels, he added.
“Maybe they will increase the momentum of their joint activities in order to demonstrate that Japan and India are closely cooperating in terms of regulating the so-called rule-based behavior in the South China Sea and the region,” Yang said.

India’s Overtures in Southeast Asia
India, as part of a fast-growing trade and investment relationship with Vietnam, can further assert itself in the South China Sea by working with Vietnamese firms on exploration for oil and gas, Le said.
For the past three years, the overseas subsidiary of India’s government-run ONGC has worked with PetroVietnam Exploration Production Corporation to search for oil and gas in the South China Sea. That cooperation helps Vietnam improve its "bargaining power" with China, Le said.
Since losing a world arbitration court verdict over its claim to the South China Sea last year, China has sought favor with Southeast Asian countries through economic aid and investment. 

Malaysia, Vietnam and the Philippines are accepting China’s overtures -- along with the same from other major nations.
The Philippines, for example, welcomes Japanese aid because the public and the China-friendly government have long trusted Tokyo, said Maria Ela Atienza, political science professor at University of the Philippines Diliman. 

Filipinos know less about India, she said, but Japan could bridge the gap.
“At least people are not so aware of possible positive relations with India,” Atienza said. 

“But if it’s an alliance, maybe if Japan can vouch for India, perhaps that can build confidence in terms of the partnership.”

Chinese Aggressions

Japan Has Ambitious Plans To Be Asia's Next Superpower, Thanks To China
By Ralph Jennings

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe delivers a speech during the graduation ceremony of the National Defense Academy in Yokosuka, Kanagawa prefecture on March 19, 2017.
Japan has lived by a peacetime constitution since 1947, two years after its World War II surrender. The constitution obligates it to groom armed forces only for defense, no first strikes on another country. 

Japan has done just about everything but add outright offensive forces to vie with China as Asia’s chief superpower. 

Its military ranks No. 7 in the world, four notches below China, the statistical data base Global FirePower.com says. 

They would probably do all right in battle: Japan has been known throughout history for rigorous training of soldiers to defend the island nation from Russia even before World War II, according to this historical take. 

The country also has a 66-year-old military treaty with the United States, obligating it to give U.S. troops a staging ground for any action in East Asia, in return for getting help in any new war from the world’s most powerful armed forces.
Three years ago the government recast the way it sees Constitution Article 9 – which renounces war – so Japan could defend not only itself but its allies if needed. 

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe says Article 9 needs an update for his people’s protection.
Abe means protection from China, you could securely say. 

China is the chief reason Japan hopes to build toward regional superpower status. 

North Korea is threatening Japan with missiles, four of which it fired into a shared sea earlier this month, and China supports the Kim Jong-un regime in Pyongyang. 

China sends military aircraft near Japanese outlying islands and Japan's uninhabited Senkaku archipelago. 

Last year China also passed ships near the Senkaku chain over more than 30 days last year. 

That means Japan needs to scramble its own planes whenever the Chinese approach.
These incidents normally raise voices in Japan for a stronger military.
Japan needled China last week with word it would send a ship into its own oceanic backyard. 

It would send its Izumo helicopter carrier into the Beijing-dominated South China Sea from May through August for port calls, on its way to the Indian Ocean for drills with the United States. 

A Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson told Japan to “refrain from causing trouble in the region,” Beijing’s official Xinhua News Agency says.
The two countries are vying to be the chief economic superpower in Asia, as well. 

That's particularly obvious in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), a bloc of 10 countries and about 600 million people. 

Chinese aid is hard to quantify but included $20 billion in loans in 2014 and a late 2015 pledge of $10 billion for infrastructure lending. 

Programs such as its “Maritime Silk Road” and the Beijing-based Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank pave way for that funding. 

Japan has donated development aid since the 1950s and announced an increase last year to Southeast Asia. 

China is keen to use the region’s natural resources, while Japan sees Southeast Asia as a site for low-cost factories. 

Japanese investment in the region rose three times to $181 billion from 2011 to mid-2016. 

Both countries hope to sell to Southeast Asian consumers. 

And both want ASEAN governments to be long-term allies in their quest for control in Asia, a reason Japanese aid to Vietnam includes patrol boats.
“For many decades, Japan has played an important role in providing development and humanitarian aid to countries throughout East and Southeast Asia, but it was long ‘hindered,’ so to speak, by its pacifist defense policy,” says Jonathan Spangler, director of the South China Sea Think Tank in Taipei. 

“It can now become more directly engaged in regional securitization efforts. This is reassuring.”

Chinese Peril

Japan And Trump Are Teaming Up To Limit China's Power

By Ralph Jennings

U.S. President Donald Trump has spoken since November to leaders of China, Taiwan and the Philippines.
He's keen to make a mark in Asia.
But the visit to Trump in Washington Friday by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe shows signs of fostering Trump's closest and strategically significant relationship in the region.
That's because the two are team up to resist China’s expansion.
The U.S. government needs Japan more than ever to buffer China’s expansion in Asia as Trump keeps a leery eye on Beijing over trade and Chinese maritime expansion off its south coast.
Japan has its own beefs with China and needs the U.S. market, which isn’t something Trump is keen to give away per his America-first campaign pledges.
The country with a developed export-dependent economy also wants to be top dog in Asia, helping less developed parts with infrastructure in exchange for opening markets and doors for factory investment.
China’s doing much of the same.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (L) and US President Donald Trump speak at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, on Feb. 11, 2017

China and Japan happen to get along poorly due to unresolved World War II issues and modern-day maritime sovereignty disputes.
Trump's secretary of state has angered Beijing by saying the United States should block it from artificial islands in the South China Sea.
Sino-U.S. trade policy is strained as well following Trump's "currency manipulator" campaign against the Chinese economy, No. 2 in the world.

So when Trump called the U.S.-Japan alliance a cornerstone of peace and stability in Asia and vowed to bring both sides even closer, it made sense.
The comments also came as relief for Abe, who wasn't sure how to read some of Trump's earlier harsh words about Japan's market access to outsiders followed by an upbeat call Feb. 9 to Xi Jinping.
The long-time American ally has the military might -- world No. 7 per rankings by the database GlobalFirePower.com -- to be a persuasive player  in Asia.
China ranks third and has militarized disputed islets off its coats.
Japan has the economic clout, too.
It gives development aid and investment to poor countries in Asia in part to maintain a pro-American, anti-China alliance.
Other allies include Vietnam and the Philippines.
The United States, however, has other things to do -- back to that America-first element of Trump’s nearly month-old presidency.
It might lean on Japan to do some of its China checks.
“For what’s going on in Asia, the U.S. is not going to be as large of a presence,” says Christian de Guzman, vice president and senior credit officer with Moody’s in Singapore.
“There may be a desire for Japan to fill that void.”
Otherwise China might fill it, he adds.
“China has promised a large pool of investment for the Philippines. Then the Chinese government turned around and promised a similar package for Malaysia. They are trying to gain influence through investment.”
After Chinese ally North Korea test fired a ballistic missile into the sea on Sunday, both Japan and the United States protested.
Trump gave Tokyo another boost by reassuring Japan that the uninhabited but strategic Japan's Senkaku Islands coveted by Beijing fall under a U.S.-Japan security treaty.
Defense collaboration will intensify, says John Vail, chief global strategist with Japan-based Nikko Asset Management.
The two sides share several geopolitical concerns, he adds.
Japan is expected to get something for keeping checks on China. 
With such close ties, even a protectionist U.S. president such as Trump would find it hard to make Japan leave the American market. 
That fate would hurt major Japanese exporters such as Panasonic and Toyota.
China and the United States are Japan’s top export markets, each worth well over $100 billion in recent years.
"The scope for Japan’s help in further reindustrializing the U.S. is immense,” Vail says.
Trump wants to bring overseas factory work onshore to increase the number of American jobs.

“Although President Trump has tough views on Japan, the meetings over the weekend helped to develop a foundation for future negotiations,” says Kohei Iwahara, economist with Natixis Japan Securities.
“At least they didn’t ruin the future climate of Japan’s economy and investment for now."

Chinese Aggressions

Abe, Mattis reaffirm U.S. commitment on Senkakus
The Yomiuri Shimbun

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe shakes hands with U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, as Defense Minister Tomomi Inada looks on, at the Prime Minister’s Office in Tokyo on Friday.

Visiting U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis clearly said during talks with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Friday afternoon that the Senkaku Islands in Okinawa Prefecture are within the scope of Article 5 of the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty, which obliges the United States to defend Japan, according to a senior government official who attended the meeting.
At the opening of the meeting, Abe said he is certain the two countries “can demonstrate in our country and abroad that the Japan-U.S. alliance is unshakable.” 

In response, Mattis said that he intended to make clear during the meeting that Article 5 of the security treaty will be important five years or 10 years from now, just as it was a year ago or five years ago.
Mattis arrived in Tokyo on the day to hold talks with the prime minister, Defense Minister Tomomi Inada and other members of Abe’s Cabinet to exchange views on the security environment in East Asia and to address mutual security concerns. 

The new U.S. defense chief’s visit to Japan marks the first by a U.S. Cabinet member under the administration of President Donald Trump. 

The ministerial meeting with Inada is scheduled for Saturday, after which they will hold a joint press conference.
During these talks, the two sides are also expected to confirm that the United States will firmly uphold the “nuclear umbrella” (see below) over Japan in its defense.
During his presidential election campaign last year, Trump was ambiguous about defending the Senkakus and also suggested that if Japan doesn’t contribute its due share to shouldering the burden of stationing U.S. forces in Japan, it would be acceptable for Japan to possess its own nuclear weapons to confront North Korea’s nuclear threat. 

These remarks caused apprehension on the Japanese side.
Confirmation by Mattis of the U.S. commitment to defend the Senkakus and maintain nuclear deterrence apparently aims to demonstrate that the position of the Japan-U.S. alliance with regard to Japan’s defense remains unchanged under the Trump administration.
At the ministerial meeting on Saturday, the defense chiefs will also confirm their intent to steadily move forward with the plan to relocate the U.S. Marine Corps’ Futenma Air Station in Ginowan, Okinawa Prefecure, to the Henoko district of Nago in the same prefecture, and other plans to reorganize the U.S. forces stationed in Japan.
Inada said at a press conference after a Cabinet meeting on Friday that at the ministerial meeting, she intends to “exchange candid views [with Mattis] on how to strengthen the Japan-U.S. alliance, the reorganization of U.S. forces and other matters to bring a greater level of certainty to the alliance.”

■ “Nuclear umbrella”
The idea that nuclear attacks can be deterred if a country makes clear its position that it would use its nuclear arsenal to retaliate if its allies came under nuclear attack from a third party. 

Between Japan and the United States, the idea was confirmed for the first time in 1965 in a summit meeting of Prime Minister Eisaku Sato and U.S. President Lyndon Johnson. 

The Guidelines for Japan-U.S. Defense Cooperation, which were revised for the second time in April 2015, stipulate that “the United States will continue to extend deterrence through the full range of capabilities, including U.S. nuclear forces.”

The Necessary War

China and the U.S. poised to clash as never before
By Michael Den Tandt

Chinese warships take part in a drill on the South China Sea in 2016.
Canada is in a solid position, because of its robust imports of U.S. manufactured goods, to fend off the waves of protectionism now beginning to ripple outward from President Donald Trump’s White House.
The same can’t be said for the follow-on effects of looming U.S. trade actions against Mexico and China, which round out the list of America’s top three goods trading partners, alongside Canada.
Mexico, judging from recent signals emanating from the Trump administration, promises to be a pre-dinner snack on protectionist America’s plate. 

China is the main course. 

The president’s executive order withdrawing the United States from the Trans Pacific Partnership trade agreement, far from pulling America back from the Pacific region, sets the stage for an old-fashioned superpower standoff there.
Long before the TPP (which had comprised Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, Brunei, Chile, Mexico and Peru, Canada and the United States) ran afoul of right-wing nativists and left-wing populists in the United States, it was an Obama administration strategy for containing the increasing expansionism of Communist China.
The strategy’s most fervent advocates were the Japanese, led by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. 

Taiwan was not invited to join TPP, doubtless because of the furious backlash this would have provoked from Beijing. 

Nevertheless the Taiwanese, led by President Tsai Ing-wen, had welcomed the pact because of the renewal of U.S. regional security guarantees it represented.
This is why, when Trump and Democratic party insurgent Bernie Sanders began looming large a year ago, both attacking the TPP, opinion leaders in Japan and Taiwan began feverishly speculating about the future of U.S. engagement in Asia.
The U.S. Navy is the guarantor of last resort for international law and international shipping through the South China Sea, worth an estimated US$5-trillion annually. 

China is attempting to assert a claim over much of that open ocean, contained by its so-called nine-dash line, as well as a group of small islets in the East China Sea in Japan’s Okinawa Prefecture.
Chinese incursions into its neighbours' territory have become commonplace in recent years, causing Japan to re-garrison its farthest-flung islands. 

Regional nerves have been further frayed by the People’s Liberation Army’s rapid building of various regional shoals and reefs into what appear to be air strips and fuel depots.
During his campaign for the Republican nomination, adding to his barrage against the TPP, Trump asserted key Pacific allies such as Japan and South Korea weren’t pulling their weight and should be made to pay for protection, or do it themselves. 

The ensuing received wisdom has been that, under Trump, the U.S. would beat a gradual retreat from the Pacific, leaving a clear field for China to continue to grow its influence.
The missing piece in this assumption was trade — a fact made increasingly obvious as Trump cabinet nominees led by Defence Secretary James Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson have appeared before Congress. 

The president’s inaugural speech confirmed it.
The administration’s self-stated sine qua non is the resurrection of American manufacturing, which it hopes to bring about by reversing a significant goods trade deficit with Mexico, nearly $60-billion in 2015, and a massive goods trade deficit with China, $366-billion in 2015.
China’s export-driven economy has long relied heavily on access to the U.S. market for steady, rapid growth. 

But that expansion, formerly in double digits, has slowed in recent years as the Chinese economy matures. 

This irreversible slowdown has been posited by some analysts as the underlying reason for Xi Jinping’s heavy-handed assertion of control over all aspects of the Chinese state — and Beijing’s new restlessness with regional limitations on its influence. 

Any dramatic curb in Chinese exports to the United States is likely to exacerbate such pressures.
Ergo, all the signals coming from senior Trump administration officials — from the president himself, with his Taiwan-friendly Tweets, on down — are not of waning interest in the Pacific region, but waxing. 

Only rather than the softish power of multilateral trade ties, the primary instrument of American power projection will be military — aircraft carriers and nuclear deterrence.
Answering questions from journalists in Washington, D.C., Monday, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said “we’re going to make sure we defend international territories,” echoing earlier remarks by Tillerson. 

Beijing responded Tuesday by saying its claims in the South China Sea are “irrefutable,” just as it has insisted that its claim to Taiwan, which it considers a wayward province, is non-negotiable.
The Trump administration’s first foreign policy statement, meantime, reads as follows: “Our Navy has shrunk from more than 500 ships in 1991 to 275 in 2016. Our Air Force is roughly one-third smaller than in 1991. President Trump is committed to reversing this trend, because he knows that our military dominance must be unquestioned.”
It boils down to this: Two superpowers possessed of the world’s largest economies, both nuclear-armed are about to clash — economically and strategically — as never before. 

Batten the hatches.

Chinese Mythomania

Japanese Hoteliers Refute China's Historical Fabrication
By JONATHAN SOBLE

Toshio Motoya, president of the APA Group, in Tokyo in 2015. 

TOKYO — She is the colorful face of Japan’s largest hotel chain, known for her garish fashion sense and business books with titles like “I Am a President.”
He is the darker side of the partnership: a polemicist who has leveraged the couple’s success to support contentious political causes.
Now Fumiko Motoya and her husband, Toshio, founders of APA Group, a Japanese real-estate and hotel empire, are facing a barrage of criticism in China. 

Their twin projects — business and conservative politics — collided this week in an uproar over historical books promoted at APA’s chain of 370 budget hotels, in which such publications are often distributed to rooms in much the same way as Gideon Bibles in American hotels.
The furor over the books, which promote the claim that Japanese forces did not massacre Chinese civilians in Nanjing in 1937, has prompted a rebuke from Beijing and threats of a boycott by Chinese travelers.
The number of foreigners visiting Japan reached a record 24 million last year, fueled in large part by a surge of visitors from China looking for good food, clean air and quality shopping. 

Despite continued tensions with its neighbor, Japan has embraced the tourist rush in its effort to look for economic growth drivers, with many retailers hiring Chinese-speaking sales clerks. 

Last year, Japan approved plans to legalize casinos, with Chinese gamblers partially in mind.
The Motoyas have shown how fraught that embrace can be. 

APA’s stance has touched off anger online in China and condemnation from official media outlets, along with calls for Chinese travelers to take their business elsewhere.
APA has been unrepentant. 

In a statement, it said that “historic interpretation and education vary among nations,” but it defended Mr. Motoya’s claims about Nanjing.
“Therefore, we have no intention to withdraw this book from our guest rooms,” the company said, adding that “no one-sided pressures” would force it to change its mind. 

APA invited readers to correct any inaccurate statements “so that we can seriously study about them.”
The Motoyas may not be as well known as another politically minded hotelier, Donald J. Trump, nor are their midmarket properties as gilded. 

But in Japan, they come close to being stars. 

Ms. Motoya, in particular, has embedded herself in popular culture though books, television appearances and an intermittent singing career.
Wearing the fanciful hats that are her trademark, Ms. Motoya appears in advertisements for APA’s hotels and “APA president” merchandise like curry and rice crackers. 

She judges televised karaoke contests sponsored by the company, and a CD of her singing nostalgia-tinged songs can be purchased on APA’s website.

While Fumiko Motoya represents the APA brand in public, her husband writes essays and books.

“As political patrons, they can’t be ignored,” said Tamotsu Sugano, an author who has researched Japanese patriotic groups. 

“They spread money everywhere.”
The Motoyas have used a fortune estimated to be in the billions of dollars to court and support politicians from the center-right establishment to the fringe. 

Guests at their long-running wine parties have included Shinzo Abe, the current prime minister, according to a record of an event in 2005 that includes a photograph and was circulated by APA at the time.
A Japanese magazine, Shukan Gendai, has estimated that Mr. Motoya, who serves as president of the overall APA Group while Fumiko leads the hotel division, is Japan’s fourth-richest person, with assets worth 220 billion yen, or about $1.9 billion. 

Shukan Gendai made its calculation based on tax records and on published APA documents, but because the company is privately owned, its disclosures are scarce and a precise figure is difficult to obtain.
The Motoyas hail from Fukui, a rural area on the Sea of Japan, where they met while working at a small local credit union, according to Ms. Motoya’s autobiography. 

They built APA from a small operation beginning in the 1970s, starting with real-estate sales before moving into hotels for budget-conscious business travelers. 

In 2015, they expanded to the United States by buying a 200-room former Hilton hotel in Woodbridge, N.J.
Patriotic literature has long been a staple, if odd, amenity at APA hotels in Japan. 

Much of it is written by Mr. Motoya, who uses a pen name but acknowledges authorship.
The books and articles describe an historical universe where Japan fought nobly in World War II and in which its alleged "atrocities" were invented by Chinese propagandists. 

The accounts differ sharply from those of Chinese "historians".
One piece of literature that was featured for years was an essay by a former air force general, Toshio Tamogami, which won a prize in an APA-sponsored contest in 2008. 

In it, Mr. Tamogami claimed that Japan had been duped into attacking the United States at Pearl Harbor in 1941, in a plot he said was hatched by Communists inside the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
The latest controversy was touched off by a video on the internet. 

Posted by a couple describing themselves as an American woman and a Chinese man who stayed at an APA hotel, it shows excerpts from a book by Mr. Motoya refuting the Nanjing massacre fable and the forcible recruitment of women into wartime Japanese military brothels. 

The video spread quickly through the Chinese internet this week, generating outrage and promises of a boycott.
For its part, the Japanese government appears to want to keep its distance. 

The chief cabinet secretary, Yoshihide Suga, declined to comment on the APA books when asked on Wednesday, saying only that Japan and China should seek “forward-looking” ways to cooperate.

Sina Delenda Est

After Abe's Pearl Harbour visit, Japan minister prays at Yasukuni
AFP

TOKYO -- A Japanese cabinet minister offered prayers at a Tokyo war shrine on Wednesday, shortly after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe paid a highly symbolic visit of reconciliation to Pearl Harbour.
Masahiro Imamura, the minister in charge of the reconstruction of northern Japan after the massive 2011 tsunami, visited Yasukuni Shrine in the afternoon.
Public broadcaster NHK showed Imamura throwing coins into a wooden box as an offering and bowing low at the shrine.
"I reported about this past year's work, expressed gratitude and prayed for our country's peace and prosperity," he said.
Imamura said his visit "has nothing to do with" Abe's trip to Pearl Harbour and the timing is "a coincidence", according to NHK and other Japanese media.
But Haruko Satou, professor of international politics at Osaka University, suggested the timing was suspicious.
"His real intention behind the visit is unknown, but it's natural to think that he chose the same day when Prime Minister Abe visited Pearl Harbour," Satou told AFP.

The minister also visited the shrine on Aug 11, several days before the anniversary of Japan's defeat in World War II. 

Cabinet members often journey to the leafy religious site at that time and during its spring and autumn festivals.

The indigenous Shinto religious shrine honours millions of mostly Japanese war dead.
Imamura's visit came just hours after Abe and Barack Obama paid homage to the more than 2,400 Americans killed on December 7, 1941 in Japan's surprise attack that drew the United States into World War II.
They offered flowers and stood in silence before a memorial to those lost on the USS Arizona — roughly half of all those killed in the assault.
The pair issued declarations about the power of reconciliation and warned against fomenting conflict.

Chinese Aggressions

Japan boosts coast guard fleet to defend Senkaku islands
Associated Press

Japan’s coast guard shadows a Chinese marine surveillance ship in the East China Sea in this 2013 image. Japan is set to boost its coast guard in the region.

Japan’s government has announced it will bolster its coast guard capabilities to defend its Senkaku islands.
The government said Japan’s 2017 coast guard budget will reach a record 210bn yen ($1.8bn) to add eight new ships and more than 200 law enforcement officials. 

The 14-ship fleet will add five large surveillance ships and three research vessels.
Abe’s cabinet on Thursday is set to approve a defence budget expected to be around 5.1tn yen ($44bn), another new high since Abe took office in 2012, according to Japanese media. 

The reports said upgraded missile defence and new submarine construction were behind the increase.
Wednesday’s decision by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe would let Japan add to its maritime presence in the islands' s surrounding waters.
Abe said Japan needed to “substantially strengthen the structure and capabilities” of the coast guard. “We will urgently begin strengthening our [maritime safety] structure,” he said.
The islands are at the centre of a diplomatic row and both Japan and China send patrol vessels and aircrafts there routinely, raising concerns of an accidental collision or other risks.
The new coast guard budget will also cover the cost of putting video transmission devices on vessels dedicated to Senkaku patrols, while strengthening maritime surveillance and other measures, Abe said.

Sina Delenda Est

President Trump sees Japan's Abe as ally in push back against China
By Tim Kelly | TOKYO

Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe arrives at the ASEAN Summit in Vientiane, Laos September 7, 2016. 

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's meeting next week with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe may mark the start of talks to garner Japan's support for a push back against China's growing influence in Asia, a security adviser to Trump said.
Trump's campaign comments, including a demand Japan pay more for the upkeep of U.S. forces on its soil, have worried Tokyo about a rift in a security alliance with Washington, in the face of a rising China and a volatile North Korea, that has been the bedrock of its defense since World War Two.
A tougher stance against China, however, and a call for Japan to play a bigger security role through a Trump-Abe axis would however fit with Abe's policies that include allowing the military to operate more freely overseas.
Abe will meet Trump in New York on Thursday before going to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Peru.
Trump was looking to Japan "to play a more active role in Asia", the adviser, who declined to be identified because he was not authorized to talk to the media, told Reuters.
Abe, he added, was "a uniquely placed figure to offer leadership in the alliance".
Senior U.S. Navy commanders have said they would welcome joint air and sea patrols with Japan's military in the disputed South China Sea, where the construction of island bases is extending Beijing's influence. 

Tokyo has balked at direct provocation of its neighbor, choosing instead to assist nations in the region with disputes with China, such as the Philippines.
Trump in his first 100 days in office would end budget sequestration that mandates spending, including cuts in military outlays, and submit a budget that would fund construction of dozens of new warships, the adviser said.
It would "send a message to Beijing as well as allies Japan and South Korea and other nations that the U.S. is intent on being in (Asia) for a long time", he said.
Trump on Thursday wants to allay any "unfounded" concerns Abe may have and affirm his commitment to their countries' security alliance, he added. 

"This is going to be a respectful conversation."
Potential friction between the two countries, however, exists over how much Tokyo pays for the deployment of U.S. forces in Japan. 

Japan says the funding it provides, which covers three quarters of the cost, is enough.
"We are bearing the burden for what we should bear," Japanese Minister of Defence Tomomi Inada told reporters in Tokyo on Friday, Kyodo news reported.
Abe knows little about Trump, and in New York is likely to want to begin building a relationship that could yield a common world view, a person who knows the prime minister said.
"He has proven to be able to get along with fairly edgy people," he said.