In order to win, Japan should give China a dose of its own medicine.
The Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) is a highly capable navy, although it is the smallest of Japan’s military branches. It is technologically more advanced, more experienced, and more highly trained than its main competitor – the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN). Yet, in the long-run, the JMSDF and the Japanese Coast Guard (JCG) – Tokyo’s principle enforcer of maritime law – are at a relative disadvantage if one looks at the bourgeoning naval rearmament program of China, which is gradually shifting the regional maritime balance in Beijing’s favor.
“From a military perspective, Tokyo is becoming the weaker party in the Sino-Japanese rivalry,” argues Naval War College professor Toshi Yoshihara, in a 2014 report by the Center for a New American Security (CNAS). “Japan (…) finds itself squeezed between China’s latent military prowess that backs up Chinese coercion over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands dispute and China’s ability to disrupt access to the global commons should conventional deterrence fail,” he further notes.
According to the Institute of International Strategic Studies, China’s share of regional military expenditure rose from 28 percent in 2010 to 38 percent in 2014 totaling $129.4 billion. In contrast, in Japan, despite fears of resurgent militarism under Shinzo Abe, regional share of expenditure fell from 20 percent in 2010 to less than 14 percent in 2014, leaving Tokyo’s defense budget at $47.7 billion.
Given Tokyo’s apparent relative decline in military strengths what is the JMSDF’s best strategy for confronting China in the years ahead?
According to Toshi Yoshihara, it is an anti-access operational concept with Japanese characteristics. In short, Japan should give China a dose of its own medicine and emulate the PLAN’s alleged anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) strategy (although there is little actual evidence that the Chinese Navy is placing a high priority on such a strategy. See: “The One Article to Read on Chinese Naval Strategy in 2015”). An A2/AD operational concept with Japanese characteristics would take into account Japan’s role as a gatekeeper to the open waters of the Pacific and would center around exploiting Japan’s maritime geographical advantage over China by skillfully deploying the JMSDF along the Ryukyu Islands chain, bottling up the PLAN in the East China Sea until the U.S. Navy and other allied navies can deploy in full-strength....MORE
