The United States is hoping that Japan’s industrial base — including industries not traditionally associated with defense — can play a bigger role in the two countries’ alliance amid mounting security challenges in the region, U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel said in a recent interview.
At his residence in Tokyo, the political heavyweight who served as a chief of staff and senior adviser in two White Houses, said building up resilience across a number of sectors and supply chains and bolstering deterrence capabilities were crucial goals for the alliance as it grapples with what he calls “the three C’s” — COVID-19, conflict and coercion — which have upended conventional thinking across the globe.
“The United States can do a lot to support our national security and the national security of our allies,” Emanuel told The Japan Times. “But we actually need Japan's industrial base to be part of the solution.”
He said there are many areas where the U.S. and Japan could combine their respective strengths to promote deterrence in the face of challenges from China, North Korea and Russia.
“For example, one of the things we know is, we have to do a lot on shipbuilding,” Emanuel said. “When I grew up in politics — and I grew up starting with President (Bill) Clinton — there were 10 shipyards in the United States. Now there are five.”
For the U.S. military, this has been especially troubling as it struggles to keep pace with China’s naval growth.
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy surpassed the U.S. Navy in fleet size sometime around 2020 and now has around 340 warships, according to the Pentagon’s annual report on China’s military power released last November. China’s fleet is expected to increase to around 400 ships in the next two years, the report said.
The U.S. fleet, meanwhile, remains at under 300 ships, with its goal of having 350 manned ships by 2045 still leaving it behind China, according to last July’s U.S. Navy’s Navigation Plan 2022.
“Japan has an expertise in shipbuilding and also has the industrial base for shipbuilding," Emanuel said. "So that would be one example of an area where we can bring our respective strengths to the table. Secretary of Defense (Lloyd) Austin has spoken about the need to have our allies’ industrial-military capability on the playing field. And Japan has a lot to bring to that, not just for their own defense but for our collective defense.”
Japan is not only the world’s No. 3 shipbuilder in terms of tonnage — trailing only China and South Korea — it is also taking a more proactive stance in bolstering its defense industrial base. In addition, the country’s new National Security Strategy, which was praised by Emanuel after it was unveiled late last year, emphasized the need to bolster Japan's defense production and technology sectors while also deepening equipment and technological cooperation with the U.S. and other partners.
In the latest sign that the pacifist country is breaking decades-old taboos associated with its defense industry, Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada said last week that his ministry will accelerate efforts to review the country's three principles on defense equipment transfers to enable exports of potentially lethal equipment such as tanks and missiles to allies. Such a move — likely to be welcomed by the U.S. — would “help maintain and strengthen” the industry, he said.
Chips and ‘resiliency’
Emanuel has been keen to tackle challenges facing the U.S.-Japan alliance over his first year as ambassador, including a push to shore up “resiliency” across a variety of sectors and supply chains, with semiconductors — which he called “a linchpin in a modern technological economy” — taking top billing.
In October, the U.S. unveiled sweeping restrictions on semiconductor exports to China to prevent it from getting and producing leading-edge chips as Washington seeks to slow Beijing’s technological and military rise.
A media report said late last month that the U.S. had secured an agreement with Japan to at least partially sign on to the measures and restrict exports of some advanced chipmaking machinery to China. The new Japanese measures — which would not explicitly single out China, so as to avoid retaliation — could come as early as this spring, Kyodo News reported last week.
Emanuel did not confirm whether Japan had agreed to extend some of the U.S. export controls to their own companies, including ASML Holding, Nikon and Tokyo Electron.
“The White House hasn't said anything, so I can't get ahead of the White House,” he said.
Still, in terms of the tough measures, the ambassador stressed the necessity of having “like-minded countries” take a “uniform” approach to the semiconductor issue.
“It's making sure that countries, economies, like the United States, Japan, Korea, the EU, Australia, are not in a vulnerable position on such an important part of the modern technological 21st century economy,” he said.
Rule of the jungle
In the wake of the shoot-down of a suspected Chinese spy balloon over the United States this week, the U.S. rivalry with China has made headlines — though no issue has perhaps resonated as much as the fate of democratic Taiwan, which Beijing calls a renegade province that must be reunited with the mainland, by force if necessary.
Tensions over the issue hit a fever pitch last August, when then-U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan, prompting China to respond with days of massive military exercises, including the launch of ballistic missiles, some of which landed near Japan’s far-flung southwestern islands for the first time.
The launches unnerved Tokyo, shining a spotlight on how an emergency in Taiwan would almost certainly pull Japan in.
Asked if he was concerned over the growing possibility of conflict with China over the self-ruled island, Emanuel emphasized the importance of a united front in preventing hostilities.
“The best way to avoid a conflict is a strong, robust, all-in deterrence,” Emanuel said, stressing that upholding the global rules-based order was also crucial to preventing war — a common refrain in Tokyo. Japan, he said, “understands that they have a role to play as a partner” in upholding that order.
“Either that system holds or we go back to a jungle-based system, where power is the determining factor. In that case, the United States would be fine, but our friends and our allies that we have an obligation to, will not be,” he said, noting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“That, to me, goes back to why making sure that your deterrence is robust, and the calculation by those who want to live on a different system — one based purely on military power — understand that there's a cost, even for the countries that believe that power is the determining factor."
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