Japan and NATO have conducted frequent interactions and deeper collusions recently. The former assisted this extraterritorial military bloc to further extend its tentacles to the Asia-Pacific, thus incurring increased risks of division and confrontation to the region. The international community especially the Asia-Pacific countries should stay on high alert.
It is learned that Fumio Kishida has planned to attend the NATO summit again in this July . In November, 2022, Japan officially joined the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence (CCDCOE), becoming the second Asian country to join the organization. In January,2023, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and Fumio Kishida announced a joint statement that listed the strengthening of security cooperation in Asia as the core of their bilateral strategic relations. The two sides also planned to expand their security cooperation to emerging areas including space and cyberspace. Under the active support of Japan, NATO decided to open a liaison office in Tokyo, its first in Asia, to make Japan a communication hub to coordinate policies and share intelligence with it along with other Asia-Pacific partners including Australia, New Zealand and the ROK.
Japan has its own strategic considerations to strengthen cooperation with NATO and facilitate its penetration into the Asia-Pacific.
First, Japan expects to refresh its international identity and status as a "military and political powerhouse" with the endorsement of NATO. In recent years, under the influence of a rightward political trend, Japan has accelerated the transformation of its national security strategy and sought to break the constraints of the pacifist Constitution. Regarding NATO as the most influential military bloc in the current world, Japan attaches great importance to the recognition of its status from this group. After the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Japan has found a rare opportunity to hype up the international "security crisis" and highlight its role.
Second, Japan hopes to enhance its geo-strategic influence and compete for dominance over the Asia-Pacific regional order under the support of NATO. In the context of great power competition, Japan fully follows US' strategic ideology to maintain hegemony through bloc politics, in an attempt to obtain endorsement and support from the latter on its "leadership in the Asia-Pacific region". In the face of the continuously reversed tendency over strength competition with China, Japan has repeatedly hyped up the so-called "China threat" and attempted to woo NATO, an extraterritorial power, to embolden itself to act as the "regional leader" and reshape the order of the Asia-Pacific by exploiting the so-called values of "democracy, freedom and openness".
In addition, Japan intends to further accelerate its military buildup and expand its space in the security field by following in NATO's footsteps. In December, 2022, Tokyo concluded a new version of three security documents with a proposal to fundamentally improve the defense capability of the country, which stipulated that its defense budget will be raised to 2% of the national GDP volume by the standards of NATO member states. Meanwhile, the enhanced cooperation with NATO countries in practical aspects such as weapon technologies and joint exercises can also help Japan open overseas markets and lift technological levels for the national defense industry, and allow the Japanese Self-Defense Forces to be involved in more overseas military operations on the pretext of "collective self-defense". In addition, following NATO's suit can also justify Japan's attempts to strengthen its weak links in military offensive capabilities, so as to further hollow out the "exclusively defense-oriented" principle.
Amid the profound changes in the world situation, Japan seeks to enhance its presence and influence in the military and security field with the support of the US-led western countries, which more evidently exposes its ambition to subvert the post-war international order. Such moves run counter to the trend of solidarity, cooperation, openness and development in the Asia-Pacific region, forming a dangerous eddy to aggravate regional tensions and incur risks and turbulence.
( Sun Wenzhu, Associate Research Fellow of the Department for Asia-Pacific Studies at China Institute of International Studies. Source: China Military Online, June 15, 2023)