Military dawns in the East

The Japan Defence Agency is set to upgrade to a full cabinet-level ministry tomorrow, in an historic dismantling of Japan’s post-war pacifistic constitutional settlement. Following recent Chinese moves to bolster their naval capacity, it seems we are witnessing a renewed desire on the part of East Asian nations to exercise military muscle. Yet despite this, repeats of the 20th century’s Sino-Japanese conflicts look more distant than ever. Both countries' economies are benefiting from increasing integration, and Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has gone much further than his predecessor Junichiro Koizumi in attempting to normalise relations with his neighbours, visiting both South Korea and China in the first days of his premiership, and pursuing a policy of ‘strategic ambiguity’ regarding the controversial Yasukuni shrine . Arguably of equal importance for regional security in 2007 are the continuing domestic woes of Taiwan’s pro-independence President Chen Shui-Bian.

East Asian military renewal is not primarily aimed at fighting East Asian wars. It rather marks the beginnings of a global projection of East Asian power not seen since the days of Genghis Khan. As China scours the globe for the natural resources it needs to fuel its roaring economy, there is every sign that those traditional theatres of Great Power competition, the Middle East and Africa, will yet again witness a scramble for influence. The prospect of a newly assertive China rubbing against western interests might be viewed as a crisis. But the components of the Chinese ideogram for ‘crisis’, romanised as wei ji, famously signify ‘opportunity’ as well as ‘danger’. Japan’s moves to modernise its military structures are aimed largely at facilitating future peacekeeping operations, building on its recent involvement in southern Iraq. As it invests ever more capital overseas, China will develop an unprecedented stake in global security, and its 3.25 million men under arms could go long way towards plugging the growing peacekeeping gap. The early 1990s saw a boom in global peacekeeping which hasn’t abated since, and UN officials were last year warning of unsustainable ‘overstretch’. American and Chinese forces have recently taken the encouraging step of conducting joint search and rescue operations, and the sooner China is integrated into the global system of security the better. Peace in the 21st century could well come to rest on Eastern might.