Based on Peter Navarro’s Crouching Tiger, this article explains China’s maritime expansion, the Senkaku crisis, the First Island Chain, offshore control, and Japan’s defense posture within the U.S.-Japan alliance—key security realities often ignored by mainstream media readers.

It would not be an exaggeration to say that this is a hard fact that subscribers of Asahi, Mainichi, and the like can never read.
2016-11-28.
The following is an article just published on Toyo Keizai Online.
It would not be an exaggeration to say that this is a hard fact that subscribers of Asahi, Mainichi, and the like can never read.
Donald Trump has repeatedly stated, “Japan should pay the full cost of U.S. troop stationing.
Otherwise, I would not hesitate to withdraw U.S. forces.”
A book titled “Beiyū moshi tatakawaba” (“Crouching Tiger” in the original), written by a University of California professor who serves as Trump’s policy advisor (Policy Advisor), has become a topic of discussion among Japan’s Ministry of Defense and senior Self-Defense Forces officials.
The author, Peter Navarro, continues to serve as a policy advisor on President-elect Trump’s transition team, in charge of the economy, trade, and Asia policy.
His original field is economics, and he studied “what kind of damage China’s unfair trade has inflicted on the American economy and its manufacturing sector.”
In the course of that work, he focused on how China, using the economic power it thus gained, has strengthened its military power and carried out various military actions in the South China Sea and the East China Sea.
That became the starting point of this book.
This March, Japan’s National Institute for Defense Studies also issued a “China Security Report” analyzing China’s maritime expansion.
Here, we present the full commentary written by Masashi Iida, the senior research fellow who was responsible for that report.
The Self-Defense Forces once deployed mainly around Hokkaido.
It is now a story of the past that Japan’s Self-Defense Forces deployed mainly around Hokkaido with Soviet amphibious landings in mind.
At present, the Ground, Maritime, and Air Self-Defense Forces are promoting deployments focused on the southwestern region, while keeping an eye on the Chinese military, which is strengthening its presence in the seas of East Asia.
This book is an excellent geopolitics book that, while analyzing the shifting balance of forces in the Pacific region accompanying China’s recent maritime expansion, explains in an easy-to-understand way for general readers “whether there will be a U.S.-China war” and “if so, how it can be prevented.”
Of course, the book, from the U.S. standpoint, describes the Sino-Japanese jostling over the Senkaku Islands and the vulnerability of U.S. bases deployed in Japan (Sasebo, Yokosuka, Yokota, Kadena, and so on).
However, it devotes little space to how Japan’s Self-Defense Forces, under what kind of strategy, are confronting China’s maritime expansion policy.
In this article, in the form of an “explanatory commentary,” I would like to write about defense strategy as seen from Japan.
The first time Chinese government vessels appeared in Japan’s territorial waters around the Senkaku Islands was in December 2008.
Since around the same time Chinese public vessels were also becoming more active in the South China Sea, where China is disputing island (tōsho) sovereignty and maritime interests with the Philippines, Vietnam, and others, it can be said that from this period China’s maritime expansion policy appeared before the international community, producing various frictions.
Survey results pointing to the possibility that enormous oil reserves may lie around the Senkaku Islands were announced in 1968.
As a result of rapid growth, the Chinese economy has increased its dependence on oil imported from the Middle East and Africa, and transporting that oil requires passing through the Strait of Malacca, which lies under U.S. sea control.
Easing this “Malacca Dilemma” is also one of the reasons China seeks to secure oil that exists on the seabed spanning the Senkaku Islands and the East China Sea.
In order to realize control of the Senkaku.
To realize control of the Senkaku, as the book also states, China’s strategy is first to rewrite maps, send in fishing boats, and gradually expand control like slicing salami.
In the 1996 presidential election in Taiwan, China conducted exercises in which it fired ballistic missiles into waters near Taiwan in order to send a message urging people not to vote for Lee Teng-hui, whom China regarded as pro-independence.
In response, the United States dispatched two fleets centered on the aircraft carriers Independence and Nimitz, and China had no choice but to back down.
The book’s view that this setback spurred China to develop “asymmetric weapons” such as anti-ship ballistic missiles to counter U.S. carrier strike groups is right on target.
By hacking, China steals the core parts of military technology from advanced countries, and by copying them builds high-performance domestic weapons.
Against China, which, as the book describes, is achieving expansion to the First Island Chain—encompassing the Yellow Sea, the East China Sea, the Senkaku Islands, and the South China Sea—by strengthening mobile, precision-strike-capable ballistic and cruise missiles, submarines, and the like, what kind of responses has the Self-Defense Forces taken?
As written at the beginning, the Self-Defense Forces originally had Soviet invasion in mind.
However, since the 2000s, after the end of the Cold War and as China’s maritime expansion became conspicuous alongside economic growth, the SDF posture has shifted its emphasis from north to south.
One example is the transfer to Okinawa of a squadron of about 20 F-15 main fighter aircraft that had belonged to the Tsuiki Air Base in Fukuoka.
This was to respond to the increasing number of scrambles (emergency takeoffs) in the southwestern airspace as Chinese military aircraft activity over the East China Sea became more active.
Also, the Ground Self-Defense Force has established a coastal surveillance unit on Yonaguni Island, and deployment of surface-to-ship missile units to the Nansei Islands is being considered for the future.
Preparations for an amphibious unit centered on the Western Army Infantry Regiment in Sasebo are also progressing, and the GSDF is enhancing its capability to retake remote islands.
The Maritime Self-Defense Force is increasing its number of submarines from 16 to 22.
By operating more submarines in the southwestern seas, it is expected that intelligence collection and surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities regarding Chinese submarines and surface vessels will improve.
In a contingency, these submarines will likely play an important role in securing maritime superiority in the southwestern seas.
The MSDF is also moving forward with upgrades to Aegis destroyers that, equipped with high-performance radar, have strong air-defense capabilities to deal simultaneously with many enemy fighters, anti-ship missiles, and the like.
In particular, ballistic missile defense capability is being strengthened, which will lead to improved ability to respond to ballistic missile attacks on the Japanese mainland.
Against an expanding China, the United States is strengthening defense cooperation with its allies in the Asia-Pacific region.
As a result, U.S.-Japan defense cooperation has made remarkable progress in recent years.
For example, one such move was the 2012 relocation of the Air Defense Command headquarters of the Air Self-Defense Force, which had been in Fuchu, Tokyo, to Yokota, where the headquarters of the U.S. Air Force in Japan is located.
The Central Readiness Force, which is responsible for initial response in contingencies within the GSDF, also relocated its headquarters to Camp Zama, where the U.S. Army headquarters in Japan is located.
By placing the headquarters of major units of the U.S. military and the SDF in the same locations, the aim is to strengthen mutual coordination during operations.
The book points out that because U.S. bases used in Asia such as Japan and South Korea are fixed, they are vulnerable to Chinese missile attacks.
This is a sharp point.
Even if ground-to-air missiles such as PAC3 are deployed and interceptions are attempted, when many missiles approach from different directions, it is difficult to shoot all of them down.
Therefore, in order for bases to continue operating even if such missiles strike, it is necessary to promote “hardening,” such as protecting key facilities and equipment with very thick concrete, and improving the capability to rapidly restore damaged runways and other facilities.
Offshore control is a matter of life and death for Japan.
The book presents another shift in strategic thinking.
That is the idea of “offshore control,” which would change the current U.S. Navy posture centered on aircraft carriers, make submarines the main force, and blockade China at the straits (choke points) along the First Island Chain.
This strategic shift toward submarines may indeed be a cheaper solution for the United States, but for Japan, located on the First Island Chain, it becomes a matter of life and death.
The idea is to dry China out by blocking imports such as oil along the First Island Chain, but it would take a considerable amount of time to drive China into such a situation.
In the meantime, China would be expected, aiming to break the blockade, to use weapons such as missiles preserved intact on the mainland to attack enemy military bases and political and economic centers located along the First Island Chain.
Also, how valid is the book’s claim that having long-range bombers on the U.S. side that can penetrate Chinese territory contributes to stabilizing the situation?
By having the capability to steadily destroy military assets in China’s interior, provocative and challenging actions by China can be deterred.
That is the deterrence concept of “Air-Sea Battle.”
For that purpose, it is a reasonable conclusion to have bombers that can fly long distances at high speed, have stealth performance that makes them difficult to detect by enemy radar, and can also strike China’s interior.
In fact, the United States possesses long-range bombers with high stealth capability, and the fact that they can strike the Chinese mainland constitutes part of deterrence.
Then, readers may think, shouldn’t Japan have them too?
However, it cannot be assumed that Japan will have such long-range bombers.
Because under Article 9 of the Constitution, Japan cannot possess offensive weapons whose performance is exclusively for devastatingly destroying the territory of other countries.
Under the concept of “exclusively defense-oriented defense,” the Self-Defense Forces possess only defensive weapons to avoid being attacked.
Thinking this through, the presence of U.S. forces in the Asia-Pacific region becomes an absolutely necessary umbrella for Japan.
In the first trial since the war.
In World War II, the United States tried to deter Japan, which sought to become the hegemonic power in Asia, by means such as an oil embargo, but ultimately failed and war ensued.
After that, in Asia, a country with powerful naval strength did not appear until China began advancing into the South China Sea and the East China Sea in the 2000s.
In that sense, the Asia region is now undergoing the trial, for the first time since the war, of a country other than the United States expanding in order to become a hegemonic power.
Some readers may have been stunned by the account in the book of how the Philippines lost Scarborough Shoal, which it claims sovereignty over.
This seizure drama began in April 2012 with the intrusion of a “Chinese fishing fleet.”
China squeezed the Philippines, which depended on the Chinese economy, through restrictions on imports of Philippine products and de facto travel restrictions to the Philippines.
Even though, with U.S. mediation, it was decided in June 2012 that both countries would withdraw from the relevant area, China continued to remain and took control of the shoal.
This book, “Beiyū moshi tatakawaba,” clearly explains, within the power balance among not only the United States and China but also Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan, South Korea, North Korea, and Japan, what China is aiming at and what is lacking on the side of the allies.
If we consider issues such as the Okinawa base problem and collective self-defense rights within this broader context, we may find a clue.
Now that a candidate who downplays the presence of U.S. forces in Asia has become president, it is a book that should be read by Japanese people.