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CHAPTER 3

Pax Pacifica

You were impressed yesterday on your arrival at Haneda and during your ride into Tokyo by the high sea walls that have been constructed around the airport and much of the rest of Tokyo Bay. Now, in 2050, there are no longer any doubts about the reality of global warming. It has been recognized as the major national security threat for many nations, including Japan. Rising sea levels have already substantially submerged the Maldives and the Seychelles, requiring mass evacuation of their populations. Along with Tokyo and Osaka, other major coastal cities such as Mumbai, Rotterdam, and New York are literally struggling to keep their heads above water.

Today, as you walk to breakfast through the lobby of the Imperial Hotel, you are asked to pause to let the Indian Minister of Defense and his entourage pass. They are on their way to join the US Secretary of Defense and the Ministers of Defense of Japan, Australia, Indonesia, and the Philippines in the semi-annual meeting of the PacInd (Pacific and Indian Ocean) Mutual Security Alliance that has replaced the old network of unilateral American security guarantees as the main pillar of stability in the Asia-Pacific region. As you sit down at your breakfast table, you note the Chinese and Japanese flags on a table across the room reserved for the High Commissioners of the Senkaku-Diaoyu Islands Joint Government Commission, the body through which the Japanese and Chinese governments jointly administer the formerly contested island group.

This is a far cry from thirty-seven years ago when there was a serious threat of war between China and the Japan-US Alliance. Then, Japan was occupying and administering the obscure islands—really just bits of rock barely rising out of the water—known as Senkaku to the Japanese and Diaoyu to the Chinese, at the far end of the Ryukyu island chain near Taiwan. An increasingly powerful China was claiming that it had rightful sovereignty over these islets and that Japan was unlawfully occupying and preparing to colonize them. Beijing had begun sending fishing boats and naval ships into what Tokyo claimed as Japan’s territorial waters, while also declaring an Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) that just happened to cover the islands. Japan invoked the US-Japan Mutual Security Treaty saying that the island chain fell under the US security umbrella, and Washington reluctantly assented. The swords were at least halfway out of their scabbards.

Indeed, because of its immediacy and global significance, this was one of the first issues the Extraordinary National Revitalization Commission had found itself confronting. The response of the Commission set the tone for much that was to follow. Noting that the contested islands had only become part of Japan in 1895 after China’s defeat in the Sino-Japanese War and had been administered by the United States from 1945 until 1972, the Commission called for settlement by arbitration through the World Court and offered Chinese energy companies the same rights to explore for and produce oil and gas as any Japanese or other international corporation.

In fact, in 2050, the Senkakus remain uninhabited and undeveloped under the shared Japanese-Chinese administration. With overlapping ADIZs that are minimally enforced by both governments, there have been no incidents for years. The islets have proven not to have significant gas and oil deposits. In any case, the whole energy issue has become insignificant for Japan as the country has become energy independent based on the development of methane hydrate, shale, clean nuclear, and renewable energy sources. Beyond that, 3-D printing, widespread use of labor-saving robots, and high carbon taxes on jet and bunker fuel have virtually ended the era of global supply chains and thus also the need for trading nations to defend them.

Beyond the acceleration of global warming and inexorably rising water levels, the main global security threats today include conflict in Europe arising from massive immigration from the disease-plagued regions of West Africa as well as from the continuing Shia-Sunni civil war in the Middle East; drug-resistant viruses; highly sophisticated and extremely wealthy international criminal groups; the destruction of the world’s jungles in Brazil, Indonesia, and Africa; and cyber disruption.

THE DECLINE OF CHINA

China has become much less important in world affairs than seemed likely thirty-five years ago. Although it was not then apparent, the golden days of China’s growth were over by 2015. Its labor force had started shrinking in 2012–2013, while the overall population began aging rapidly in 2015 and quickly became among the oldest in the world. The question had always been whether China would get rich before it became old; the answer, as it turned out, was that it would not. When that became apparent, the flaws in the Chinese system began to show. It was clear that the already wide gap between rich and poor was going to continue widening. The bill for past pollution, environmental degradation, and corruption began to come due. None of this had affected the Chinese high-growth GDP figures in the past, but now the results were clear: corrupt practices were choking growth, and pollution and environmental problems were resulting in ill health and premature deaths. Corruption in particular became a huge issue. Officials and Communist Party operatives who had become enormously rich while officially being paid normal salaries became the targets of investigation, public protest, and harassment. Such people hurried to get themselves and their money out of China and to obscure the funds they had already stashed away abroad. More important than this was the fact that China was increasingly unable to afford medical and elder care while also paying for the large military force it had been building and maintaining. Thus, like the United States before it, China began to downsize its security forces, a step that also induced it to be more cooperative with Japan and other leading countries.

Most important, however, was China’s growing internal political tension and a loosening of national unity. Large areas like Guangdong Province were demanding more autonomy, and major political, business, academic, and media figures were calling for more participative politics with much more transparency and openness. China had become absorbed with its own internal difficulties while Japan’s Revitalization Commission was leading its country toward restoration.

Now, in the middle of the twenty-first century, India has become far more important than China. As the Centre for Economics and Business Research forecast long ago, India has recently passed China to become the world’s largest economy. Having become the world’s most populous nation in 2025, it now has the youngest working population of the major countries. It also has a large, well-trained, and experienced military with its own nuclear weapons and delivery systems, as well as large modern naval, air, cyber, and drone forces. These forces were successful in compelling China to abandon its claims to Indian territory by 2025 with the Treaty of the Himalayas. It was the 2022 inclusion of India in what had been the US-Japan Mutual Security Treaty, and the extension of that alliance to include Australia, Indonesia, and the Philippines that turned the old bilateral US-Japan pact into what has come to be called the Grand Alliance. This treaty also includes many cooperative basing, training, and visiting arrangements with countries such as Singapore and Vietnam. The Grand Alliance has become more significant to world security than NATO, and—in combination with the inward turning of China—now assures peace and stability in the entire region spanning Asia-Pacific countries, the Indian Ocean, and the Persian Gulf. Importantly, it was not the United States but Japan that took the initiative to achieve this multilateral security system, and it is Japan, Australia, the Philippines, and India who take the primary first reaction responsibility for assuring security in their respective regions. Of course, US forces are always available if absolutely necessary, but they are the call of last rather than first resort.

Effectively, the mutual security system that grew out of the US occupation of Japan and the Cold War has been turned upside down. The Pax Americana has become the Pax Indo-Pacifica.

THE FADING OF THE PAX AMERICANA

The end of the Pax Americana in the Pacific had actually been foreshadowed as early as July, 1969, when then-president Richard Nixon announced the Nixon Doctrine. This stated that the United States would provide a nuclear shield to allies under the threat of nuclear attack, and that the United States would provide appropriate security assistance to allies threatened by non-nuclear aggression. But it emphasized that the United States would expect the nation under threat to assume the primary responsibility for its own defense. Coming at the height of the Vietnam War, this was an early signal that the countries of Asia could not count on America to fight their battles if they were not prepared to fight for themselves.

Subsequently, the end of the Cold War removed much of the justification for the extensive network of US security alliances and military deployments. A “peace dividend” was widely expected, and most of the US forces in Europe were repatriated as Washington slashed defense expenditures.

The US Defense Strategy Reports of 1990 and 1992 also called for removal of most US forces from the Asia-Pacific region by the end of the decade. At the same time, leaders in Japan began to speak of the lessening need for the security alliance with the United States, and of greater reliance on the UN and on economic cooperation. It began to look as if Japan would reassume responsibility for its own foreign policy and bear a much greater burden for its own defense.

But that all changed in 1995 with the publication of the US Defense Department’s new Security Strategy for the East Asia-Pacific Region. This document reversed previous statements by saying that although the Cold War was over, diverse conflicts posed threats to US interests and made it necessary for America to maintain its then-current troop levels (about 100,000) in the region for the foreseeable future. This was followed in April of 1996 by the US-Japan Joint Declaration reaffirming the “Alliance for the 21^st Century,” which essentially confirmed the unilateral US commitments of the US-Japan Mutual Security Treaty while providing the basis for a potential broadening of Japan’s support of US military-related actions. Thus, as far as the United States and Japan were concerned, the end of the Cold War changed nothing.

Behind this great reversal were three unexpected developments: the Gulf War of 1990–1991, North Korea’s nuclear weapon and missile development, and the rapid rise of China’s military spending. All of these created uncertainty that caused both Tokyo and Washington to postpone significant changes in the security arrangements. But this status-quo course posed several problems for America. The US was losing the overwhelming economic competitiveness that had supported its political and military superiority during the Cold War. China was becoming a formidable regional rival. With a rapidly growing economy and an authoritarian government that had no need of policy approval from the citizenry, it could easily bear the burden of an arms race. With a relatively declining economy, Washington would find engaging in such a race increasingly difficult. (By 2012 it had already become impossible for Washington to even contemplate sending its aircraft-carrier battle groups into the Taiwan Strait, as it had done in 1996 in response to Chinese threats of attack on Taiwan.) In addition, by carrying the major burden of defense for Japan and its other Asian allies, the United States was enabling Japan to postpone the long-term necessity of providing more of its own security. The arrangement allowed Tokyo to avoid serious consideration of its own circumstances. For instance, it could neglect settling disputes with South Korea and China over minor islands, antagonize neighbors with denials of certain facts of World War II, and postpone serious discussion of mutual defense arrangements with South Korea and other potential Asian allies. Finally, the understanding assumed a perfect and continuing congruence between the interests of America and those of its Asian allies. In doing so, it potentially made the United States hostage to policies and actions of its allies that might not always be in its own best interests.

WAKE-UP TIME

The advent of the administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in December of 2012 marked the beginning of the end of the Pax Americana. Abe himself recognized that the United States could not indefinitely maintain its hegemonic role, and that the arrangement had become a potential long-term trap: as US power declined, Japan would increasingly be unable to defend itself unless it took steps now to assure its future. Early in his term, Abe spoke of “breaking away from the postwar order.”

Abe visited India in May of 2013, pledging greater defense cooperation between Japan and India and agreeing to conduct joint military exercises on a frequent basis. In July of that year, he visited the Philippines and offered ten patrol boats to help the Philippine coast guard better defend Manila’s claims to some of the South China Sea islands also claimed by China. Said Abe, “For Japan, the Philippines is a strategic partner with whom we share fundamental values and many strategic interests. In order to further reinforce this relationship...we confirm continued assistance to the capacity-building of the Philippine coast guard.”

Coming from the then junior security partner in the US-Japan alliance, these visits and statements were surprising to some. But Abe seemed to have understood that the continued presence of American power in the region could only be maintained on the basis of a stronger, more independent Japan. Many suspected Abe of dreaming of a revitalization of Japan’s prewar nationalism. But, as Kazuhiko Togo, an ambassador in the Japanese Foreign Ministry noted in the Nelson Report in September, 2014, no American president could indefinitely justify unilateral American defense of Japan to the American public when the interests of the two countries might diverge. Ironically, the nationalist Abe was trying to keep the Americans in the Pacific as part of his effort to keep the Chinese out, or at least at bay.

Three issues were particularly indicative of the trend of the future of the Pax Americana: South Korea-Japan dissension; Chinese-Japanese confrontation over the Senkaku Islands; and a potential choice for America between the current Air-Sea Battle strategy of complete dominance over the East and South China Seas up to the shores of China, and the new, less confrontational Offshore Control strategy anchored on the second island chain rather than the first.

SOUTH KOREA AND JAPAN DON’T TALK TO EACH OTHER

Like Japan, South Korea had a mutual security treaty with the United States that committed America to its unilateral defense. As allies of the United States, South Korea and Japan were indirectly allies of each other, and shared many of the same security concerns. Nevertheless, neither country shared even routine national security intelligence with the other. All exchanges took place through American intermediaries. Finally, in June, 2013, it appeared that an agreement on intelligence sharing had been reached. At the last minute, however, the deal was tabled because of an intense anti-Japanese reaction by the South Korean parliament.

This was triggered by Tokyo’s release of a public opinion survey showing that two-thirds of Japanese thought the Takeshima Islands, then administered by South Korea as its own sovereign territory, were rightfully Japanese territory. South Korean politicians saw the release of this survey as insultingly provocative and reneged on the intelligence deal.

To explain just how strange this situation was, some analysts noted that Japan’s Self-Defense Forces were committed to defending the Takeshima Islands as Japanese territory, while South Korea’s president emphasized that his country would defend them to the death, especially against Japan. The United States, as the most important ally of both countries, was bound by treaty to defend each. Did that mean that the US Navy would go to war with South Korea against Japan while the US Army went to war with Japan against South Korea? Obviously, this was kind of a joke question, but it carried an important hidden meaning. If South Korea and Japan didn’t care enough about their own and regional security to settle the issue of these tiny, insignificant islands in order to share national security intelligence, perhaps America should also think differently about how it fulfilled its security treaty commitments.

THE SENKAKU ISLANDS

The second issue that had ramifications for the future of the Pax Americana was China’s unilateral and unannounced establishment, on November 23, 2013, of an Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) over the East China Sea that overlapped with Japan’s ADIZ in the same area, covering the Senkaku Islands. Beijing required aircraft of any type passing through this zone to file a flight plan with the Chinese authorities and to notify them when entering the space.

Sovereignty disputes over the Senkakus between Japan and China were nothing new. In the wake of World War II, the islands had been kept under US Occupation authority and then turned over to Japan, along with Okinawa, when the islands reverted to Tokyo’s authority in 1972. According to accounts by former Japanese diplomat Hiroshi Hashimoto, during their 1972 talks on restoration of Japan-China diplomatic relations, Chinese Foreign Minister Zhou En Lai and Japanese Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka had agreed to leave resolution of the question of ultimate sovereignty over the islands to later generations. Quiet then prevailed until September of 2012, when the Japanese government bought three of the islands from their private owner. Ironically, Tokyo did this to forestall any private plans for economic development of the islands that might antagonize China. Tokyo’s intent to the contrary notwithstanding, Beijing was antagonized, claiming the purchase was a violation of the agreement between Zhou and Tanaka, and responded aggressively by sending fishing boats, patrol craft, and observation planes into the waters and skies around the islands. At one point, Chinese naval guns even locked their firing radar on Japanese Self-Defense Force planes. All of this seemed to be aimed at calling into question Japan’s ability to administer the islands and at forcing Japan to agree to negotiations over their eventual fate.

Japan had no interest in negotiating as this might have constituted an admission of the possible validity of China’s claims. In the eyes of Tokyo, Japan’s ownership of the Senkakus could no more be disputed than China’s ownership of Taiwan.

In this regard, however, a crucial question was what the United States thought. By treaty, it was obliged to come to Japan’s defense if Japanese territory were attacked. But did the Senkakus count as Japanese territory? On one hand, Washington recognized that Japan was administering the islands, and said in press statements in 2013 that it would defend against any effort to change that administration by force. On the other hand, it repeatedly responded to press questions by saying that it had no opinion on the question of which country’s historical claims were most valid. So the United States would not commit itself completely to support Japan’s position, and that gave a hint of danger to Tokyo.

The imposition of the ADIZ by Beijing probed at this possible gap between Washington and Tokyo. The immediate US reaction was to announce that it would not recognize the zone. To prove the point, it immediately sent two B-52 bombers through the zone without prior notice or flight plans. While that was encouraging for Japan, Washington also directed all US airlines to act in accordance with the Chinese demands. This was less encouraging, as Japan had told its airlines to ignore the Chinese zone requirements. In early December, 2013, Vice President Joe Biden visited first Japan and then China. His mission was to reassure Japan of America’s strong commitment to its defense, while also not saying anything that might further disrupt US-China relations. In Beijing, he urged Chinese president Xi Jinping to administer the ADIZ passively, but did not suggest that China cancel the zone. To close observers, the message seemed clear. Washington was reluctant to risk offending China in defense of what Japan considered its right of sovereignty over the Senkakus. This became more worrying for Tokyo in May of 2013, when some Chinese generals stated that Japan also had no right of sovereignty over Okinawa and the other Ryukyu Islands.