Original title: [Surrendering Japan Special Topic] Peace behind divergence—The Abe Government’s Ambition to expand its military ambition
Peace behind divergence—The Abe Government’s Ambition to expand its military ambition
In December 2012, the second time he served as the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party , Shinzo Abe , won the election of Japan House of Representatives and was appointed as the Prime Minister. The lesson of the car made Abe handle internal relations more easily and finally revealed his original face. He put aside the hypocritical veil of friendly neighborliness and began Japan's constitutional amendment and military expansion. Abe directly overturned the defense outline of his former cabinet, Noda Yoshihiko , in 2011, believing that it could not meet the threats faced by Japan next, so he terminated it and proposed a further revised defense outline in mid-2013.
Abe's version of the defense outline continues to strengthen the air and sea alert capabilities of the southwestern islands, and the resources and budget invested will be higher than when the Democrats were in power; for example, the defense budget for Heisei 24 (2012) was 4.645.2 billion yen (about 41.9 billion US dollars). The Democrats, who were still in power at the time, hoped to reduce 60.2 billion yen in the Heisei 25 year (2013). However, after the Abe government came to power, it required the defense budget for 25 year 25 year 2 to increase 40 billion yen compared with 24 year 2013.
In the 26th annual (2014) defense outline approved by the Japanese cabinet meeting in mid-December 2013, the strength of Maritime Self-Defense Force has been strengthened, including the construction of two new Aegis ships with anti-ballistic missile capabilities to replace the Tashifeng class, and plans to build a new frigate DEX to replace the Chuxue-class, Asaki-class destroyer and Abukuma-class escort destroyer, increasing the total number of sea-autonomous battleships from 47 at the end of 2013 to 54, and the submarine force increased from 16 at the end of 2013 to 22. At the same time, it is also considering purchasing large amphibious assault ships similar to the U.S. Navy Hornet-class.
In order to respond to China's increasingly high-profile challenges to the Diaoyu Islands issue, Japan decided to build amphibious combat forces under the Ground Self-Defense Force in 2013 (the "water engine disruption" with a total force of about 3,000 people) and formulated a budget to purchase 52 US-made AAV-7 amphibious armored vehicles from the 2013 fiscal year (the Ministry of Defense officially decided to introduce AAV-7 on December 2, 2014), and purchased US-made MV-22 tilt rotor aircraft, with at least 17 aircraft, and will be equipped with the Ground Self-Defense Force from 2018. At the same time, starting from the 2014 fiscal year, the Osumi-class will be modified to enable it to carry two landing crafts, MV-22 and AAV-7 (at the same time, Japan is also developing more advanced domestic amphibious landing crafts).
In order to carry out the "Out-island Revenge" operation, the Ministry of Defense also invested 100 billion yen from the 2014 fiscal year to integrate the communication transmission system of the Ground Self-Defense Force with the Maritime/ Aviation Self-Defense Force (original communication transmission between the Maritime Self-Defense Force and the Aviation Self-Defense Force has been integrated, but the Ground Self-Defense Force uses an independent system). Japan officially established the Amphibious Rapid Deployment Brigade in the spring of 2017. It initially had 2,000 troops, and then increased to 3,000 people, forming combat capabilities in 2018. The establishment of a "land-land reserve team" mainly focuses on the possibility of China's possible attack on the southwestern islands, including the Diaoyu Islands (Senkaku), and Japan will then independently or with the assistance of the US military to carry out "off-island revenge" operations; however, the establishment of these attacking forces equivalent to the Marine Corps and involves the sovereignty dispute over the Diaoyu Islands between Japan and China, which further increases the tension between China and Japan.
On March 12, 2014, leader Shinzo Abe proposed a new basic policy on weapons export, called the "Three Principles of Transfer of Defense Equipment", which was used to replace the negative " Three Principles of Weapon Export " in the past, and passed it at the cabinet meeting on March 31, 2014. Based on the trend of China's rise and the development of advanced main combat equipment has gradually evolved into international cooperation to share high prices, the new three principles will allow the export of weapons and related technologies under the implementation of strict review and the satisfaction of specific conditions.The "three principles for transfer of defense equipment" are:
First, do not export defense equipment if it hinders the maintenance of international peace and security;
Second, limit and strictly review the situation where exports are allowed;
Third: When export objects use defense equipment for purposes or transfer to third countries, they must be placed under appropriate management.
When the Abe cabinet passed the "Three Principles for the Transfer of Defense Equipment", Japanese House of Representatives then passed a bill to join the United Nations "Arms Trade Treaty" (ATT) on April 10, 2014. The "Arsenal Trade Treaty" is a weapons restriction treaty adopted by the UN General Assembly in April 2014. It is the first global treaty to regulate traditional arms transactions. Once passed by more than 50 countries, it will become a mandatory clause (by early 2014, a total of 118 countries signed and adopted by 31 countries). This treaty mainly establishes standardized review and control procedures for the import and export of traditional weapons, ensuring that the traded weapons will not ultimately be used to carry out humanitarian activities, such as flowing into civil war conflict areas (such as Syria ) and promoting massacre of civilians, ethnic cleansing or terrorist attacks. The scope of weapons applicable to this treaty covers tanks, fighter jets, warships, missiles, artillery, and light weapons.
Japan's first major potential cooperation partner for the export of weapons technology was Australia; Australia, which is preparing to build a new generation of ocean-going attack submarines, has developed a strong interest in Japan's Sorong-class submarines. The Japanese Abe government intends to export submarine technology to Australia, and the strategic significance behind it is to strengthen the strategic partnership between the United States, Japan and Australia. Japan is the only country with a ready-made design for such large ocean-going attack submarines. In early July 2014, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who visited Australia, signed an agreement with the Australian Prime Minister, including economic cooperation and submarine technical cooperation. Australia will obtain technologies including silent, hull and propulsion systems from Japan under this agreement. This cooperation also includes the possibility of Japan and Australia cooperating in the future to develop submarines and exporting them to third countries. This is the first foreign military technology export and cooperation implemented after the Japanese government proposed the "Three Principles of Transfer of Defense Equipment" in March 2014 to replace the past negative "Three Principles of Export of Arms".
Although the sale of submarines to Australia was ultimately defeated by the conventionally powered version of the Barracuda-class submarine of the French Shipbuilding Bureau Group (DCNS), the first large-scale equipment export to India was exported US-2 seaplanes. In May 2013, Japanese Prime Minister Abe began to discuss exporting US-2 seaplanes to India during his visit to India. After three subsequent negotiations, the two governments determined their purchase intention. The Indian Ministry of Defense Procurement Committee officially decided to purchase 12 aircraft at the end of January 2015, defeating the world's traditional two-strong seaplane industry - , Canadian Bombardier and Russian Beriev, becoming the first foreign customer of the aircraft. Moreover, the transaction was paid through the government development assistance (ODA) funds provided by Japan to India.
In June 2015, the Japanese Congress passed the "Revised the Ministry of Defense Settings Law", merged the Ministry of Defense's "Technical Research Headquarters" responsible for the research and development of equipment and technology and the "Equipment and Facilities Headquarters" responsible for the Self-Defense Force equipment, garrison facilities, etc. into the "Acquisition, Technology Logistics Agency, ALTA), and was officially established on October 1, 2015. The Defense Equipment Department is responsible for the unified management of the development of Japan's defense technology and equipment (self-research or international cooperation), outsourcing, abandonment, export, etc. The establishment of the Defense Equipment Agency is closely related to Japan's loosening of military technology exports and participating in international cooperation in recent years. It not only promotes the export of Japanese military technology, but also provides a smoother channel for military technology exchanges and cooperation in the development of weapons systems between Japan and other allies.
Abe took office in 2012, the defense budget for the 25th year of Heisei (2013) ended the trend of Japan's continuous reduction in defense budget since 2006. The defense budget for the 25th year to 27th year of Heisei (2013 to 2015) has been in a state of rapid growth for three consecutive years.
The annual defense budget for Heisei 27 passed in January 2015 was 4.98 trillion yen, plus the additional budget of 210 billion yen for the Heisei 26 (2014) passed in the same period, bringing the actual defense budget for 2015 to 5.2 trillion yen, an increase of 2.8% from the previous year. This is the first time that Japan's defense budget has exceeded 5 trillion yen (about 42 billion US dollars), breaking the previous record of 4.9392 trillion yen in 2002 and setting a record high of Japan's defense budget.
Purchase of advanced weapons platforms (including the Ato-class modified Aegis ship, Japanese domestic P-1 anti-submarine aircraft, F-35A fighter, etc.), and strengthen surveillance and defense of the southwestern islands are one of the main reasons for the growth of the defense budget. In both fiscal years 2016 and 2017, Japan's annual defense budget exceeded 5 trillion yen (now approximately US$45 billion). On June 20, 2017, a committee of the Abe cabinet passed a report proposing that Japan's annual defense budget should not be maintained at around 1% of GDP for many years, but should be followed by the North Atlantic Convention (NATO) countries and increase it to 2% of GDP.
Indeed, the leaders of countries that are envied and disliked by foreigners may be very excellent leaders for their own country. The coming of the Abe government is in an era when China is developing rapidly and rising rapidly suppressing Japan. Abe takes advantage of the United States' Asia-Pacific rebalancing strategy to constantly exaggerate and hype China's threat theory, and continuously strengthens relations with China's neighbors such as India, the Philippines, Australia, and Vietnam through weapons exports and state aid, and becomes an indispensable "maid" role in the US's Asia-Pacific strategy, and then continuously strengthens the US-Japan alliance. However, Asia is the Asians' own Asia. Abe has made Japan, the bridge for the United States to intervene in Asia, and its military expansion path still cannot change the comparison with the strength of neighboring countries. In the future, this path will gradually become more difficult.
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