Where the Obama administration spoke of a pivot to Asia, President Biden quickly dispatched his two most prominent Cabinet members to the region on their first overseas trip, with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin defining the relationship with Japan as vital to containing China in the Indo-Pacific.
On Tuesday, Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with their counterparts in Japan before traveling on to South Korea, hoping to mend another Trump-era relationship frayed by American basing quarrels. With a one-year basing deal settled in Japan, Austin sought to reframe how military relations with the world’s No. 3 economy will better serve U.S. interests in the Indo-Pacific, specifically the East China Sea and South China Sea.
“The U.S.-Japan alliance in particular is a cornerstone of our Indo-Pacific strategy,” Austin said in Tokyo after the first half of 2+2 bilateral meetings concluded.
“Japan shares our concerns with China’s destabilizing actions,” he added. “[China] has engaged in aggressive and, in some cases, coercive behavior, and some of that behavior has been directed against our allies in the region.”
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Austin’s visit to Japan included face time with some of the 54,000 U.S. troops stationed there. The Navy’s 7th Fleet is also headquartered at Yokosuka, with one of America’s 11 aircraft carriers, the USS Ronald Reagan.
Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga of Japan will also be the first in-person visitor to the White House.
In recent weeks, the Chinese Coast Guard has conducted patrols in Japanese territorial waters surrounding the Senkaku Islands. Japan secured from Austin a guarantee that Article 5 of the U.S.-Japan defense agreement includes protecting the Senkaku.
Brian Harding of the U.S. Institute for Peace told the Washington Examiner that Japan is primed to advance U.S. security goals in the region.
“Japan is the most important partner for the United States in Asia,” he said.
“The ability to have those forces located in Japan allows the United States to project power in the Western Pacific unlike anything else,” he explained. “The Indo-Pacific is truly the priority region of the world, and the United States is going to work first and foremost with allies.”
On China, Japan got reassurances that it will not be a pawn.
Japan’s evolving military
A major difference between the Obama and Biden administrations is the handling of China, and the U.S. and Japan are now aligned.
“There’s always a concern in Japan that they could potentially be sold out by the United States in pursuit of some grand bargain with China,” Harding said. “China is acting more aggressive, across the board, than ever.”
INDOPACOM told the Washington Examiner that Japan recently began to expand its military capability. The Japanese armed forces, known as the Self-Defense Forces ever since World War II-era restrictions were levied, may now see an expansion of its missions. That will help improve interoperability with allies.
Japan also participates in over a dozen bilateral and multilateral exercises, including Malabar and RIMPAC, with Quad members Australia and India.
“The two sides have increasingly come to an understanding that the real challenge now in the post-Cold War era, it’s really China,” Harding said. “There’s been work on integrating the alliances, making it more interoperable.”
INDOPACOM commander Adm. Phil Davidson said Japan is already showing signs that it is upping its game.
“Increased defense spending purchasing some of our most advanced systems is a clear indication Japan seeks to improve its national defense posture and the U.S.-Japan alliance,” Davidson stated in written testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Added Harding: “There’s really deep consultations going on between the United States and Japan on what we would like them to invest in.”
However, in Davidson’s Senate hearing, he indicated that selling the Japanese public on a stronger military may take some time. The Indo-Pacific commander noted how the Japanese people objected to the placement of two powerful Aegis Ashore missile-defense systems that were already paid for.
Japan may switch to a land and sea mix, he said.
“They’re trying to work through those local politics,” Davidson told West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin.
In previewing the Austin trip, the Center for Strategic and International Studies’s Michael Green said aside from quarrels over basing, there were aspects of the Trump administration that Japan liked.
“There was a lot of alignment, actually, with the Trump administration despite the uncertainty and difficulties with the man at the top,” he said on a recent press call. “The Trump administration’s Free and Open Indo-Pacific Strategy was modeled on Japan’s Free and Open Indo-Pacific Strategy.”
The U.S. Congress recently approved $6.8 billion toward INDOPACOM’s Pacific Deterrence Initiative, a military infrastructure plan that will bankroll projects across the region to improve U.S. access and help contain China.
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Japan can, in turn, provide an alternative to China’s influential Belt and Road initiative, leveraging its strong economy and financial ties to the countries of South and Southeast Asia, both Green and Harding argue.
“Japan is the alternative,” Harding said, noting Japan’s infrastructure projects in Southeast Asia. “If it wasn’t for Japan really going out of its way to compete with China on infrastructure development and economics generally, the United States would be in a much worse-off strategic position.”
