Speculation In South-East Asia On Japan’s Defence

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31880, 7 January 1969, Page 6

Speculation In South-East Asia On Japan’s Defence

(From DAVID EXEL, N.Z.P.A. staff correspondent) SINGAPORE, Jan. 6. Speculation about Japan’s future defence policies has provided a minor wave of diplomatic and journalistic gossip in South-East Asia as the region enters 1969 with question marks predominant in any discussion about regional security.

Stimulated by reports that Japan will send a destroyer flotilla on a good-will visit to the area in July—and aided by Lee Kuan Yew’s recent comments on Japan’s natural defence reflexes—the speculation has surprised many foreign observers by the note of Incredulity with which some newspapers and diplomats greet any suggestion that Japan is likely to become a major factor in the security equation in the 1970’5.

The “Sydney Morning Herald,” in an editorial article reprinted by some SouthEast Asian newspapers, asked a few days ago: “Is there a new Japanese defence policy in the making?”

To many observers in South-East Asia who have watched Japan in the postwar years, the answer seems to be an obvious “no”—there is nothing “new”, they say, in the facts of economic growth which make defence of trade routes a likely part of any major nation’s foreign policies. Lee’s View The Prime Minister of Singapore (Lee Kuan Yew) summed up the feelings of those who believe that wider Japanese defence interests are inevitable, when he told a press conference: “I would have thought that with such long supply lines for oil to the gulf, and down to Australia for iron ore and so on, it is part of Japan’s natural defence reflexes to make sure that these supply lines are secure.” And Mr Lee warned those who take public statements at face value: “As you yourself have read in the newspapers recently, Mr Eisaku Sato (Japan’s Prime Minister) says Japan cannot undertake these very expensive responsibilities. But I am told that this is very Japanese. You know, one says that this is very much the way of going forward slowly.” It is not necessary to postulate a revival of militarism in Japan to foresee the like-1

lihood that Japan will not allow her trade routes to be unprotected after Britain vacates the Singapore naval base in 1971 and the United States military presence is diminished. Apart from the oil and iron ore mentioned by Mr Lee, Japan's two-way trade with South-East Asian countries themselves has risen steeply to more than s4ooom a year. Government Influence

No observer of the Japanese scene could deny that pacifism is still a strong political force in that country. But the long-term trend is away from pacifist tendencies, which at any rate are not, shared (at least in their more extreme forms) by Japan’s: ruling party, the Liberal' Democrats. In the last two years, considerable effort has gone towards “educating the nation” about the need for a realistic view of defence. From a post-war constitution banning all forms of armed forces, Japan has already produced the nuclei of highly efficient army, air and naval forces. The third “defence build-up plan” will produce, by 1971, forces which not only are quantitatively larger than at present but forces equipped with the best available military hardware.

Public play is still made with the term “self-defence forces” rather than "army” or “air force.” But the .degree of public acceptance of the need for defence has risen considerably (as shown by public opinion polls) as the Government’s education campaign takes hold. Two Tokyo newspapers have recently been running daily articles on the selfdefence forces, discussing their equipment needs with a frankness unthinkable in the Japan of the immediate poct-war years, when a "nuclear allergy” was combined with an intense feeling of resentment against the military leaders who had led Japan into the depths of defeat.

Present Plans Present defence planning in Japan calls for these improvements by 1971: Army (at present 174,000 men): replacement of 180 tanks: procurement of 83 large and medium helicopters, about 160. armoured personnel car-! Tiers and 10 transport aircraft (the army already has 140 fixed-wing aircraft and 160 helicopters). Navy (at present 36.000 men, eight submarines, 40 des-

troyers and frigates): building of 56 ships, including 14 destroyers and five submarines; the present naval air component of 190 combat aircraft and 50 helicopters will be increased by about half; the coast guard, which at present consists of about onethird of the ships in the naval building programme, will be increased. Air force (at present 40,000 men, 570 combat aircraft): additional surface-to-air missile squadrons will be formed, and the 200 FLO4J Eiko interceptors will be phased out and replaced by American Phantoms, probably to be produced under licence in Japan. Japan's defence expend!ture is still tiny in relation

to gross national product—at least partly because of the security offered by the United States-Japan Defence Treaty. But in the next few years, American pressure on Japan to play a bigger role in her own defence is thought by observers to be likely to reinforce internal pressures demanding protection of commercial interests.

This year’s visit to South Asia of a Japanese destroyer flotilla is the first since the Second World War, and might well raise some Southern Asian eyebrows. But Governments in South Asia—some of them reluctantly acknowledge that good-will visits by Japanese destroyers might well be as unremarkable in the future as are visits by Japanese freighters, loaded with the stuff of trade, at present.