U.S. Ambassador Rahm Emanuel praises Japan’s decision to 'invest in its own defense'

U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel praised Japan and Primer Minister Fumio Kishida on Wednesday for pledging to bolster the U.S.-Japan alliance by pursuing what Kishida has said would be a major increase in the country’s defense budget, as China continues its assertive moves in the region.

Speaking at a panel discussion with former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Tokyo, the ambassador also vowed that Washington would remain a “permanent Pacific presence and power” as the Ukraine crisis reverberates across Asia.

Emanuel said that while there are “lessons to be learned from Ukraine,” Kishida had acknowledged the need to bolster Japan’s deterrent capabilities months before the war began.

“Japan is in a hostile and challenging geostrategic environment,” Emanuel said. “Stepping up is therefore good for Japan and for a free and open Indo-Pacific region.”

In an attempt to strengthen Japan’s deterrence capabilities and its alliance with Washington, Kishida pledged during his first in-person summit with U.S. President Joe Biden last month to effectively break with a long-standing taboo in Tokyo on hiking defense spending.

The vow came after an LDP panel recommended in late April that the government double the country’s defense budget to 2% of gross domestic product within five years amid an “increasingly severe security environment.” The recommendation also said that Japan should consider acquiring a so-called counterstrike capability that would allow it to strike enemy bases and command centers and also act as a deterrent to attacks.

On Wednesday, Emanuel pointed to that recommendation, as well as to other capabilities being discussed such as missile defense, applauding any Japanese decision “to invest in its own defense.”

Abe — who currently leads the largest faction in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party — echoed this sentiment, noting that Japan, as a major power, must punch its own weight as it seeks to carve out a larger role in the international community.

“Every country should carry out its own responsibilities in accordance with its economic power,” Abe said. “And Japan needs to show that it is making an effort and therefore the discussion around the percentage of GDP for the defense budget is important.”

Such a quick and large increase, long urged by some in the U.S., would put Japan on par with NATO countries’ defense spending targets and serve as a potential check on China.

But a massive hike in the defense budget would be a sensitive issue in Japan, which has long had an informal cap on spending at around 1% of GDP, mainly in a bid to stay in line with the country’s pacifist Constitution.

Last week, Abe called for a defense budget of roughly ¥7 trillion ($60 billion) for the next fiscal year, up from ¥5.4 trillion under this year’s initial budget, local media reported.

“It’s natural (for the government) to secure defense spending equivalent to 2% of GDP,” Abe was quoted as saying.

Since leaving the Prime Minister’s Office in September 2020, Abe has been an outspoken advocate for bolstering his country’s defenses amid the war in Ukraine, China’s growing regional assertiveness, including near self-ruled Taiwan, and North Korea’s successive missile tests.

Russia’s moves in Ukraine, in particular, have stoked concerns in Japan that China could take a page from Moscow’s playbook and heap even more pressure on democratic Taiwan. Beijing views the self-ruled island as a renegade province that must be brought back into the fold, by force if necessary.

A growing number of lawmakers in Tokyo have aligned with Abe’s view that any attempt by China to invade Taiwan — which sits just 110 kilometers away from Okinawa’s Yonaguni Island — would also represent an emergency for Japan.

Asked about Biden’s apparent acknowledgement that the U.S. would militarily come to Taiwan’s aid if it were attacked by China, Emanuel avoided the question, but said that the president had conveyed that Washington’s policy toward the island “is clear and consistent and has a history as it relates to the Taiwan Relations Act.”

“For me as ambassador, the less said the better,” he quipped.

In a tweet after the event concluded, Abe noted that the ambassador had “answered a difficult question about Taiwan with humor.”

Biden made headlines at his summit with Kishida when he suggested that the United States would be willing to get involved militarily to defend Taiwan — remarks that appeared to undermine Washington’s long-standing policy of “strategic ambiguity,” in which the U.S. expresses a strong interest in Taiwan’s security while avoiding an outright promise to defend it.

On the economic front, while Abe reiterated Tokyo’s view that the United States should return to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) trade pact, Emanuel attempted to play up the U.S.-led Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF).

That framework, unveiled during Biden’s visit to Tokyo, has been targeted by critics for its lack of details. Still, the U.S. ambassador said that times had changed since the original TPP was crafted and that a new approach was needed.

“What happens in Ukraine is not staying in Ukraine,” Emanuel said. “Cost and efficiency are being supplanted, or complemented, by stability, and sustainability. That wasn't true” when the TPP was being crafted.