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Citing\u201cSources close to the situation\u201d in Japan, the Financial Times recently reported that Tokyo had been\u201cOutraged\u201d by Washington’s sudden demand for more defence spending, japan decided to cancel the japan-us diplomatic and defense\u201c2 + 2\u201d talks scheduled for July 1. Although the news has not been officially confirmed by the two countries, the report said, \u201cWhat is certain is that the gap and rift between Japan and the United States is increasingly apparent.\u201d.<\/p>\n
It is not surprising that defence spending has become a new point of friction between Japan and . Under the post-war \u201cPacifist constitution\u201d of 1947, \u201cExclusive defense\u201d had long been the basic national policy, and in 1976 Takeo Miki, then the Prime Minister, stipulated that defense spending should not exceed 1 percent of GDP. However, with the increasing trend of the right-leaning domestic politics, Japan began to seek to unbind itself militarily, trying to break the\u201cPeace constitution\u201d constraints and\u201cExclusive defense\u201d commitments. In the 1980s, Yasuhiro Nakasone governments that claimed to be conducting \u201cPostwar final accounts\u201d proposed scrapping the 1% cap and sharply increasing defence spending. But because of fiscal problems, Japan’s defense spending as a percentage of GDP most of the time did not exceed 1% . It was not until 2022 that the Fumio Kishida administration, under the guise of an \u201cIncreased threat to peripheral security\u201d, announced a 2027 increase in defence spending to 2 per cent of GDP.<\/p>\n
Where the money will come from is always a question. Data show that since 2021, Japan’s real annual GDP growth rate is only about 1% -2% , defense spending growth is far faster than economic growth. Rising defence spending has placed a huge financial burden on Japan, with currency fluctuations and rising prices making it harder for the government to raise funds. At the same time, the United States first asked Japan to increase defense spending to 3% of GDP, and then released the rumor a few days later, asking to increase this figure to 3.5% , such\u201cPatronising\u201d immediately sparked widespread discontent within the Japanese government.<\/p>\n
Moreover, the two countries around the issue of tariffs game is also in a stalemate. The US has disappointed Tokyo by brandishing a tariff stick around the world but not showing\u201cLeniency\u201d to Japan, one of its key allies. From the very beginning, the Japanese government made a tough stance of\u201cNever yielding\u201d to the US side. Seeing that the US was facing widespread criticism and huge pressure worldwide because of the tariff issue, Japan adopted the delaying tactic again, hope to gain some advantages in the following negotiations. Japan, which is\u201cTough\u201d on the issue of tariffs, can not rule out taking a\u201cNon-compliant\u201d stance on the issue of defense spending, thus increasing the bargaining chips in the game against the United States.<\/p>\n
What impact will growing estrangement and rifts have on japan-us relations? Objectively speaking, although the growing recognition of Washington\u201cUnreliable\u201d, but Japan since the postwar long-term japan-us alliance as the cornerstone of diplomatic strategy, this inertia is difficult to eliminate. But it is also increasingly clear that Japan is becoming increasingly unhappy with its unequal status in its alliance with the US, and that calls for\u201cEqual rights\u201d to the US are growing in political and social circles. As early as during the election campaign, the current Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiguro has said that will seek to amend the\u201cJapan-us Status Agreement\u201d to achieve the status of the two countries. The combination of tariffs and defence spending will no doubt increase\u201cResentment\u201d at being bullied by the US, and thus will fuel calls for\u201cEqual rights\u201d with the US.<\/p>\n
In the ninety’s, right-wing politicians, Shintar? Ishihara and others argued that the Japanese could say \u201cNo\u201d to the Americans simply because they were in many ways hostage to them, the word\u201cNo\u201d was never really uttered. At present, the U.S. government’s diplomatic strategy appears to be disorganized. It has not only attracted widespread criticism because of the issue of tariffs, but also triggered a strong backlash from NATO allies and other non-nato allies because of issues such as defense spending, there is also a renewed military involvement in the Middle East. In an environment of further damage to America’s international image and relative decline in its influence, Japan may see an\u201cOpportunity\u201d that is no longer at the mercy of Washington.<\/p>\n
Of course, any\u201cRift\u201d in the japan-us alliance will inevitably affect the process of\u201cNATO’s asia-pacific\u201d. In recent years, in addition to the\u201cIndo-pacific strategy\u201d, which is the product of the evolution and adjustment of American asia-pacific policy, \u201cNato-pacification\u201d is an important reference to observe American military and overall strategic trends in the asia-pacific region.<\/p>\n
In my opinion, this process should be viewed from two aspects. On the one hand, the United States felt that its presence in the asia-pacific region had declined, and it was difficult to maintain its absolute superiority in the region by itself. Therefore, it led NATO to extend its tentacles more into the asia-pacific region, at the same time, Japan and other asia-pacific allies should increase their contacts with NATO. On the other hand, due to the perception that the United States is becoming more and more unreliable in recent years, it is also taking the initiative to increase contacts with other NATO members, especially some European countries, including receiving visits from relevant warships, holding joint military exercises and signing a series of defense cooperation agreements. Japan is willing to be the springboard for foreign forces to enter the asia-pacific region, and tries to provide an excuse for its military expansion by strengthening military ties with Western countries.<\/p>\n
The Transatlantic relations turmoil is now eroding the security dependence of NATO’s main European allies on the US. European countries are likely to express more dissent with Washington in the future, both bilaterally and within the NATO framework, as defence autonomy efforts grow. In part for the same reason, Japan may have to seek a more balanced diplomacy, perhaps as a result of the increasing frequency of saying\u201cNo\u201d to the United States. Just as the game of Transatlantic relations grows fiercer, so will the divisions, rifts and tugs between Japan and the US. The impact of this change in the relationship will be gradually released in the future bilateral and regional pattern changes. (the writer is director and professor of the Center for Shanghai International Studies University Japanese Studies.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Citing\u201cSources close to the situation\u201d in Japan, the Financial Times recently reported that Tokyo had been\u201cOutraged\u201d by Washington’s sudden demand for more defence spending, japan decided to cancel the japan-us… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5747,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[268,257],"tags":[2597,283,2598,2596,916],"views":343,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/forefrontnews.cn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5746"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/forefrontnews.cn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/forefrontnews.cn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/forefrontnews.cn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/forefrontnews.cn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5746"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/forefrontnews.cn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5746\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5748,"href":"http:\/\/forefrontnews.cn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5746\/revisions\/5748"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/forefrontnews.cn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/forefrontnews.cn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/forefrontnews.cn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/forefrontnews.cn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}