With Prime Minister Kishida Fumio in Washington this week for talks with President Joe Biden, Japan’s new National Security Strategy (NSS) is likely to provoke discussion on new boundaries for minilateral groups to hedge against the China threat. For Tokyo, the region has become unmistakably more worrying.  

In December 2022, Japan released its new NSS. It is both transformational and paradoxically wedded to Japan’s deeply embedded, defence-oriented security mindset. This includes a commitment to Japan’s Three Non-Nuclear Principles of not possessing, not producing, and not permitting the introduction of home-based nuclear weapons. Nonetheless, this duality manifested in the NSS also has implications for Australia.

One transformative aspect of the new NSS includes the acquisition of counterstrike capabilities. In accordance with Japan’s Constitution, counterstrikes have been conceived as a minimum necessary measure for self-defence and remain consistent with the Three New Conditions for Use of Force. These are: 1) when an armed attack against Japan occurs or when an armed attack against a foreign country that is in a close relationship with Japan occurs and as a result threatens Japan’s survival and poses a clear danger to fundamentally overturn people’s right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness; 2) when there is no other appropriate means available to repel the attack and ensure Japan’s survival and protect its people; and 3) use of force limited to the minimum extent necessary. The reasons for acquiring these capabilities are numerous.

North Korean weapons proliferation

When considering North Korea’s accelerated production of a plethora of missile delivery systems, including short-, mid-, and long-range inter-continental ballistic missiles and technologies to evade anti-ballistic missile (ABM) systems, Tokyo has come to the conclusion that Pyongyang seeks to saturate Japan, US, and South Korean ABM defence systems in the region. As outlined by Iwama Yoko and Masashi Murano, North Korea is likely to increasingly engage in missile blackmail to pressure the US and its allies in the region to reach a settlement favorable to its leaders’ wants. Alongside ABM and theatre missile defence systems, counterstrike capabilities are meant to offer another layer of deterrence against North Korean missile brinkmanship.

China’s rapid militarisation

China’s rapid militarisation since entering the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2021 has raised questions about the viability of Japan’s traditional security approach. To illustrate, from 2000 to 2010, China’s known, year-by-year military spending increased by at least 10 percent annually. It’s most contemporary known increase of seven percent for fiscal year 2022 surpassed US$229 billion. Investments include its extensive anti-access/anti-denial system meant to circumvent US asymmetric naval comparative advantages by lining the east coast of China with “carrier killers” and other offensive systems.

Moreover, as a non-signatory to the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, China has deployed numerous surface-launched, intermediate-range missiles. It is operationalising anti-ship ballistic missiles and long-range land-attack cruise missiles and developing and deploying hypersonic glide vehicles, according to the Japan’s 2022 National Defense Strategy.

Rapid militarisation has also included the building and then militarisation of artificial islands in the South China Sea. Most recently, in August 2022, China engaged in military drills surrounding Taiwan after Nancy Pelosi’s visit. These drills included naval and land assets such as the Chinese aircraft carriers the Liaoning and the Shandong and at least 75 amphibious assault ships, at least one Type 55 cruiser, and several Type 54 frigates.

Aside from the military build-up, China’s firing of 11 Dongfeng-type ballistic missiles, some of which flew over the island of Taiwan before crashing into Japan’s Exclusive Economic Zone, demonstrated the ability to disrupt sea lines of communication that Japan depends on for imports, exports, and energy resources. In this context, counterstrike capabilities are meant to erode the ability of an attack on Japan while simultaneously defending its periphery through a strengthened US-Japan alliance.

Russo-China alignment

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, increased military coordination with China, and newer-model equipment and implementation of large-scale military exercises in the Far East region, including in the Northern Territories, has been highly provocative to Japan. In echoing Michał Bogusz, Jakub Jakóbowski, and Witold Rodkiewicz’s conclusions in their report, “The Beijing-Moscow axis: The foundations of an asymmetric alliance,” Tokyo conceives the Russian‑Chinese quasi-alliance as a strategic convergence of Beijing’s and Moscow’s priorities to strengthen their strategic positions vis-à-vis the US. By “simultaneous aggressive policies – Russia in Europe, and China in the Indo‑Pacific,” they each seek to dilute Washington’s limited resources “to put an end to the dominant role of the United States and Western institutions on the international arena, and to create a favourable international environment for the survival of their authoritarian regimes.”

Japan’s modest increase in defence spending to two percent of GDP over five years seems inadequate to deal with the increasingly acute security environment when considering the triple geopolitical hazards of North Korea, China, and Russia.

The NSS as a platform for broadening Australia-Japan security partnership

The NSS sees cooperation with like-minded countries as essential to re-enforcing Japan’s security and complementing the Japan-US alliance. Through institutional frameworks such as reciprocal access agreements, acquisition and cross-servicing agreements, and agreements concerning the transfer of defense equipment and technology, the NSS envisions a strengthening of security partnerships to dissuade revisionist powers from threatening Japan and its interests in the Indo-Pacific region.

As a Special Strategic Partner, Japan aims to leverage the pre-existing Japan-Australia Joint Declaration on Security Cooperation to deepen cooperation “second only to the Japan-U.S. defense cooperation.” This includes “deepening consultations at all levels including the Foreign and Defense Ministerial Consultations (“2+2”), bilateral/multilateral training and exercises, and defense equipment and technology cooperation.” This will include exercises and rotational deployment in Australia, enhanced mini-lateral cooperation within the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad), and contingency trilateral cooperation between Japan, the US, and Australia.

Japan’s efforts to maintain and strengthen the international economic order based on free, fair, and equitable rules will require enhanced cooperation with Australia through the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement on Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), ensure the full implementation of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership agreement, and the materialisation of other economic partnership agreement negotiations and the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework. Here, CPTPP expansion, proactive and complementary diplomatic engagement at the WTO, and other economic forums between Japan, Australia, and like-minded partners will be critical to shaping a rule-based economic order where economic coercion, intellectual property rights infringement, and state-owned enterprise intervention into markets are absent.

With Russia and China willing to destabilise liberal democracies with their cyber activities, improving response capabilities in the field of cybersecurity will require an enhancement of domestic resources and international collaboration. While not mentioned in the NSS, AUKUS’ commitment to developing cybersecurity, defense, and potentially offensive capabilities is an area that needs Japan-Australia cooperation with an expanded AUKUS framework, potentially including Japan, Canada, and other like-minded states. AUKUS and Australia’s 2020 Defence Strategic Update may be a template to build on in terms of deepening cyber cooperation, however as Sally Burt argues, the need to develop norms for the use of new cyber weapons and the regulatory regimes around their use is another potential area of cooperation.

Japan’s new NSS should be understood as pragmatic realism when it comes to national security. It explicitly weds national security to supporting a rules-based order by working bilaterally within minilaterals and in international organisations. Counterstrike capabilities and the increased investment in deterrence while abiding by the Three Non-Nuclear principles and Japan’s longstanding defence-oriented security posture demonstrate that Japan continues to share a worldview with Australia that is founded on rules and not a might-is-right approach to foreign and domestic affairs.

Dr Stephen Nagy is a senior associate professor at the International Christian University in Tokyo, a fellow at the Canadian Global Affairs Institute (CGAI), a senior fellow at the MacDonald Laurier Institute (MLI), a senior fellow at the East Asia Security Centre (EASC), and a visiting fellow with the Japan Institute for International Affairs (JIIA). Twitter handle: @nagystephen1.

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