Koizumi vows to uphold ‘defense-oriented’ policy at ASEAN meet

Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi has vowed to uphold Japan’s “exclusively defense-oriented” policy, as China continues to claim that Tokyo is “accelerating its remilitarization” with its defense buildup and shifting security policies.

Koizumi, speaking at an expanded meeting of Association of Southeast Asian Nations defense ministers on the Philippine island of Cebu late Thursday, said that Japan will set an example with its transparency as it revises its three key security documents — including its National Security Strategy — by the year-end.

The Japanese defense chief said the changes will improve his country’s ability to defend itself and contribute to the security of the region. 

“What will not change is the path we have followed since the end of the war as a peace-loving nation, as well as (our commitment to) the rule of law and transparency and respect for sovereignty,” Koizumi said.

“In particular, our exclusively defense-oriented policy will never change,” he added. 

Japan will only use force in the event of an attack, limit its use of force to the  minimum necessary for self-defense, and only maintain and possess capabilities that are minimally required for self-defense, according to the Defense Ministry. 

The policy, intended to reflect the pacifist spirit of the Constitution, has come into question in recent years as Japan builds up a “counterstrike capability” that allows it to strike enemy bases and considers revising its long-held “three nonnuclear principles.”

Koizumi, for his part, emphasized Thursday that in order to uphold Japan’s defense  policy, the country must strengthen its capabilities to deter threats. 

“Every country should be able to defend itself and choose its own future,” he added. “Japan will support this and set an example of transparency.”

At the defense summit in the Philippines, which brought together the ASEAN’s 11 members and eight dialogue partners, including Tokyo, Koizumi also touched on Japan’s April revisions to its defense export rules, which paved the way for the transfer of lethal weapons. 

Japan has moved with unusual speed to deepen defense-industrial partnerships across the Indo-Pacific following easing of the restrictions, reaching deals to sell new weapons systems such as advanced stealth frigates to Australia and pushing to transform retiring warships into instruments of regional capacity-building with the Philippines and Indonesia.

China has lambasted Japan over its moves to free itself from many of the postwar constraints on its military and defense policies, though this criticism gained considerable momentum following Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s remarks last November in parliament that Tokyo could hypothetically intervene militarily in a Taiwan crisis under certain scenarios.

Beijing — which claims democratic Taiwan as its own and has vowed to bring the island under its control, by force if necessary — has effectively cut off diplomacy with Tokyo in the wake of those comments, instead unleashing a full-throated condemnation of what it claims is Japan’s “remilitarization.”

On Thursday, the Chinese Defense Ministry again put Japan in its sights, denouncing Japan’s “beefed-up military deployment in its southwestern islands and accelerated remilitarization.” 

Koizumi has repeatedly delivered sharp rebuttals of the Chinese accusations, saying that Japan’s “path as a peace-loving nation has been valued by the region and by the international community” and  stressing that this reputation “will not be shaken by disinformation and information manipulation.”

But the Japanese defense chief has also sought to spotlight Beijing’s own military buildup and what he says is a lack of transparency surrounding that program, questioning in parliament earlier this month how China, with a growing arsenal of nuclear weapons and strategic bombers, could criticize Japan, which has neither.