Gearing up for new regional realities

KOTA KINABALU: The past week may be said to have been a momentous one for East Asia, as the national leaders of the Philippines, Japan and the United States met in Washington, D.C., and solidified their alliances. I used the plural form of “alliance” here primarily because the US is already an existing treaty ally of the Philippines and Japan, and the latest summit may be said to be one that not only enhanced and upgraded such treaty commitments but also “consolidated” them into a new collective arrangement, albeit a sub-treaty one.

The Japan-American and Filipino-American mutual defense treaties came about in the aftermath of the Second World War. In the former case, Japan was a defeated warring nation, and it was made by the victorious US for Japan to give up its power to wage war in return for America’s guarantees of its security needs. This includes, at least in name, Japan not being allowed to raise and keep standing military forces with offensive capabilities. That is why Japanese armed forces are all called “selfdefense” forces, to emphasize their defensive and not offensive postures, and thus to reassure not only the US but also Japan’s neighbors, including the Philippines and most other Southeast Asian nations, that Japan would remain a powerful but peaceful regional player.

There are correspondingly many dozens of American military installations and tens of thousands of American military personnel stationed all over Japan, not so much as stakes of an overbearing occupier but as converse tokens of security assurances for Japan. In recent years, an increasing number of Japanese have become dissatisfied with this sort of “protectee” security solution for Japan, which they see as rendering Japan an “abnormal” nation unable to undertake its own national defense. How much of this Japanese “awakening” is pandering to the right wing of the Japanese political spectrum or even a reminiscence of Japan’s much-feared militarist past remains a subject of heated debate both within and outside Japan.

In any case, Japan’s late former prime minister Shinzo Abe and current prime minister Fumio Kishida vowed to boost Japan’s defense capability, with Kishida promising to vastly increase defense spending, with at least tacit American approval and perhaps even appreciation. The appreciation part was especially pronounced during the Donald Trump administration, as Trump famously chastised America’s European allies for not spending enough on their defense needs and relying on American defense largesse. Trump and Abe hit it off very well, with Abe calling on Trump at Trump’s Trump Tower residence before Trump even assumed the presidency.

But even with President Joe Biden and Kishida, the chemistry apparently went well, too. Biden laid out the red carpet on the White House lawn for Kishida’s state visit. During the state dinner, Kishida, with both family roots and a parliamentary constituency in Hiroshima, the Japanese city tragically devastated by the American atomic bombing during the Second World War, said that most Japanese Americans could also trace their ancestry to Hiroshima. Kishida is apparently a Star Trek fan, as he called on Japan and America to “boldly go where no man has gone before” together. During his speech at a joint session of the US Congress, Kishida started by recalling his time in America, having gone to public elementary schools in New York for a few years while his father was a diplomat there.

To standing applause by US Congress members, Kishida stressed that America would not be alone as it defended free and democratic values around the world. Instead, Japan would be America’s staunch partner in doing so. This could indeed be seen as a sort of “coming of age” for Japan as a nation, as it emerges from under the shadow of American protection to assume a more equal and responsible partnership. While the exact details of the new defense partnership between America and Japan are still sketchy, it appears that both countries are moving toward some form of joint military command of their combined armed forces, as well as American empowerment of its military headquarters in Japan, such that a more rapid and robust military response could be launched to counter rapidly changing regional crises and geopolitical challenges. There are further murmurs of integrating Japan, at least in an auxiliary (read: non-nuclear) manner, into the Aukus arrangement currently undertaken by Australia, the United Kingdom and the US, with technology transfer and intelligence-sharing possibly on the table.

The US similarly has treaty-bound mutual defense obligations with the Philippines. In recent months, there have been quite a number of run-ins between Chinese and Filipino ships in the disputed waters of the South China Sea. This geographical designation is conventionally used by the rest of us in Southeast Asia, including other relevant territorial disputants, although we are aware that the Filipinos call it the West Philippine Sea and the Chinese call it the South China Sea. In any case, as the Chinese side has been ramping up its assertive posture there, the Ferdinand Marcos Jr. administration is also seen to be pivoting increasingly toward the American side. These are just manifestations of geopolitical calculations as the US and China continue with their global and regional confrontation, and China remains the elephant in the room in the minds of both Japanese and Filipino leaders. The enhanced trilateral cooperation arrangement similarly has, as yet, very sketchy details. But the Americans have apparently learned their lesson of not focusing exclusively on security matters when dealing with a largely mercantile Southeast Asia, for there are provisions for developing a Luzon “corridor” as well.

These are turbulent times in the region and around the world. And Southeast Asia, situated at the crossroads between the East and the West, will undoubtedly be affected both geopolitically and socioeconomically by any and all conflicts arising thereof. We all have to brace ourselves in tackling these challenges that could be sparked unexpectedly. There is no way to run and nowhere to hide.