Japan Shifts Military Posture to Defend Against Chinese Threat

I like it.

At New York Times, "Japan to Shift Its Military Toward Threats From China":

TOKYO — In what would be a sweeping overhaul of its cold war-era defense strategy, Japan is about to release new military guidelines that will reduce its heavy armored and artillery forces pointed northward toward Russia in favor of creating more mobile units that can respond to China’s growing presence near its southernmost islands, Japanese newspapers reported Sunday.

The realignment comes as the United States is making new calls for Japan to increase its military role in eastern Asia in response to recent provocations by North Korea as well as China’s more assertive stance in the region.

The new defense strategy, likely to be released later this week, will call for greater integration of Japan’s armed forces with the United States military, the reports said. The reports did not give a source, but the fact that major newspapers carried the same information suggested they were based on a background briefing by government officials.

The new guidelines also call for acquiring new submarines and fighter jets, the reports said, and creating ground units that can be moved quickly by air in order to defend the southern islands, including disputed islands in the East China Sea that are also claimed by China and Taiwan. These disputed islands are known as the Senkakus in Japanese and the Diaoyu in Chinese.

Details of the realignment, which had been delayed a year by the landmark change of government in September 2009, have been leaking out since large joint military drills earlier this month between Japan and the United States that included the American aircraft carrier George Washington.

More at the link.

This is especially interesting since I've been blogging East Asian security issues. Japan issued some of the most forceful statements on the recent North Korean artillery attacks, for example. And this discussion of Japan's emerging posture reminds us of realists argument on the constraining and shaping forces of international power dynamics. China's growth is clearly triggering some strategic thinking in Tokyo, and the growth of Beijing's power --- combined with the ambiguity surrounding the intentions of the Chinese leadership --- is pushing Japan even tighter into its alliance with United States. I've written more often on regime change North Korea, and not to mention some reflections on China's influence on the peninsula, but I just saw this recent piece from Elizabeth Economy, and it makes Japan's moves look quite natural considering: "The End of the 'Peaceful Rise'?"