Chapter 5: An Assessment of Japan’s Strategic Trends
This essay was translated by ZHANG Wei and proofread by LI Jingquan and WU Chengyi.
Concerns over the developmental trends in Japan’s strategy in 2016 are mainly focused on the following three noticeable fields. At the political level, after the House of Councilors elections, the forces campaigning for constitutional revision and led by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) now enjoy more than two-thirds of the seats in both Houses of the National Diet for the very first time. As constitutional revision starts to become a real possibility, the year 2016 might consequently have a chance to be marked as Japan’s “First Year of Constitutional Revision.” The issue at stake here is whether the course of national development that post-war Japan has pursued over 70 years may alter, a significant issue of far-reaching influence. At the diplomatic level, the Shinzo Abe administration continued with its deepened promotion of “strategic diplomacy” at global, sub-regional, and bilateral levels. Underpinned by a comprehensive package of measures giving fair consideration to both the overall picture and the specifics, Japan’s international strategy is particularly aiming at the elevation of its global status, escape from the dire predicaments in sub-regions like Northeast Asia, and rapid accumulation of assets used in the game against China. At the security and defense level, Japan continued providing strong impetus to its independent military buildup while deepening the Japan–U.S. alliance. As its new security bills entered into force in March 2016, it sought to seize this opportunity to extend its international security policy space and to check and counterbalance China in the East China Sea and the South China Sea. Taken as a whole, restrained by certain circumstances and conditions, policies in the above three fields were operated with a different degree of completion. Since every aspect of the development in Japan’s strategy is associated with China, it has become a vital issue that China has to heed and address in the process of realizing its set national strategic goals.
