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Why Japan Is Facing Pressure To Return To Military Research (thestack.com)
An anonymous reader writes: China's growing nation status has Japan reconsidering its 70-year old ban on military research projects, as Japanese defense circles actively seek to take advantage of the country's vanguard position in robotic technology. Pressure from the government is also mounting, as authorities try to find means to bring university researchers into the defense fold — particularly to meet the challenge of a more aggressive Chinese military. Funding cuts in Japanese higher education, combined with a weakened economy and governmental austerity measures, may make the allure of military funding irresistible to researchers and academic institutions.
Or more likely it has to do with China becoming much bolder in it's attempts to take control of the South China Sea and the Spratly Islands. And then there is NK which has launched multiple missiles over them in blatant threat to them.
Not everything relating to global military concerns revolves around the US.
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The US doesn't start fights. It imposes itself into fights it has no reason being involved in. Totally different.
Regarding Japan though, I doubt the Japanese are fearful of the US attacking them anytime soon. It's more that they're worried, rightfully, that if China were to invade them the US may or may not help defend them depending on the politics of the situation. Also the Chinese have been seizing any rock poking it's head above water in the South China Sea to claim territorial rights on, and there's quite a few disputed rocks that China & Japan both claim ownership of.
Don't forget NK and their not subtle threats. But you nailed it.
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It is unfortunate that Japan has to consider rearming itself, but with North Korea's ability to launch (possibly nuclear) missiles at Japan, and China's increasingly belligerent tone in the south china sea, Japans current pacifist constitution cannot stand. It cannot rely on the US to wholly protect her. If we could all take a step back and realize the silliness of it all, the world would be a much nicer place, but we are all jerks to someone else, whether you want to be or not and you do need to protect yourself, lest you get shot bringing words to a gun fight.
Pacifist nations get conquered unless they pay to non-pacifist nations to protect them. Blame human nature, but dare not to ignore it.
It is no longer clear that independent Japan is more valuable to US than trade with China, as such protection is less guaranteed. Look at much weaker Russia getting away with annexing parts of Georgia and Ukraine that only resulted in anemic sanctions and rhetoric.
Oh dear god, please build Mechs! You'll need them when giant creatures emerge from a rift in space-time in the Pacific...
I am not interested in articles about life extension advancements.
The only reason that Japan is doing this is because China is coming. The USA currently guarantees Japan's safety, but seeing as the Japanese hate the US military being on their soil, it's only a matter of time until they get kicked out, to thunderous applause. Then, it's back to the good old days of Japan/China relations.
Why are the Chinese doing what they're doing? Two reasons, the first being that they require external resources to power their economy. Without military control, they're under the domination of the international bankers, and we all know how well that turns out.
China's view is, "we were out of commission for 150 years, but now we're back, and it's time return to the old system where everyone acknowledges China as the center of the world (a far better translation of 'zhongguo' than the pathetic 'middle kingdom' literal translation). Oh, and we're bringing back the kowtow so be ready to knock your head on the floor when you visit us." They were wronged in the past, and now it is time for others to be wronged. Social justice in action. The second reason is to distract their population from the horrid job the Communist Party is doing. Growth is slowing, people are getting restless, and some of them are getting crazy ideas like they could do a better job running the government themselves rather than allowing the smart people to do it. The smart people have been ruthlessly fucking over the ordinary people and laughing about it. You can turn on Chinese TV any hour of the day or night and see at least 2-3 wartime dramas, all reminding the people about WWII. Sheesh, we Americans got sucker-punched by the Japanese but we paid them back in spades. China never got to do this...the Japanese surrendered and suffered few defeats in the mainland. So they do it on TV every day...the joke is that more Japanese soldiers die every month at TV studios than died during the whole war. And it is always the Communist Party doing the fighting, when the truth is that they wisely stayed out of the war and let the right-wingers do all the dying. You gotta hand it to them, they have a good plan and they're executing it well. Japan doesn't really have a choice but to re-arm, they want the Americans out and without defense, it will be Japan who will become a client of China.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
The American president is going to launch a nuclear war because China invades Japan? Not a chance.
I sort of see Japan as the place to look how to make something new , whereas I look at China as the place to look how to make something cheap and in high volume
You might ask someone who remembers the '70s how they used to see Japan.
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Japan is also getting into the business of arms exports, as well. For instance, they're one of the finalists (and the favored contender) to win a contract to build submarines for the Australian Navy (other competitors being France and Germany).
Overall, this is nothing bad - even were Japan to fully rearm, Japan today is a far cry from the aggressive expansionist of 80 years ago. China is the real threat to international stability and order in East Asia with its aggressive attempts to seize outlying islands on the flimsiest of justifications. (North Korea is a threat as well, but more to South Korea, and to a lesser extent Japan)
The Japanese public is also incredibly wary of full rearmament, and they're undergoing massive protests to the current government's plan to even relax some of the pacifist restrictions to let them do things like help the USA prior to a direct attack. To put another way, as it currently stands, if North Korea attacks South Korea, and starts firing missiles at US ships, Japan wouldn't be able to do a thing until Japan itself is fired on - not even to shoot down missiles targeting US transports.
Pacifist nations get conquered unless they pay to non-pacifist nations to protect them. Blame human nature, but dare not to ignore it.
It is no longer clear that independent Japan is more valuable to US than trade with China, as such protection is less guaranteed. Look at much weaker Russia getting away with annexing parts of Georgia and Ukraine that only resulted in anemic sanctions and rhetoric.
Your first paragraph is fine. Your second - not so much.
You're comparing apples and oranges. Georgia and Ukraine were not NATO members and had no treaties requiring other nations to come to their aid if attacked. Japan has a mutual self-defense treaty with the USA and the US has made it clear to China that it will honor this treaty by saying that it recognizes Japanese control over some disputed islands that China also claims. The reason that South Korea and Japan don't have nuclear weapons isn't because they are too stupid to create them. They don't have them because basically the security treaties they have with the USA are strong enough that they don't feel - yet - that they need to violate international law and build nuclear weapons on their own. But China's continual asshat behavior may eventually lead to Japan reconsidering that and while South Korea and China have no territorial disputes, aggressive North Korean behavior may also convince South Korea and Japan that they need nuclear weapons of their own. China's current government cannot be trusted at all and some Asia watchers have speculated that that some years from now the so-called Peoples Liberation Army may stage a coup and take over China themselves. And nobody knows what will happen then,. I can tell you that my impression is that too many years of Communist Party propaganda have created a PLA that is somewhat divorced from reality and literally believes it is invincible. Japan's fears are real and they would be best served to strengthen their own military now while they have time rather than wish they had done so later when facing a possible Chinese military dictatorship. I believe it is inevitable that the Chinese Communist Party will be removed from power, probably within 10 years. Whether that removal leads to a democratic China or a crazy military dictatorship that in a worst case scenario could be like dealing with a gigantic North Korea, I don't know. But I'm pretty sure that the Chinese military leaders are not as sane as rational as they need to be and it's not going to be good at all for anybody if they end up running the show there.
Bullshit. If China invades Japan, ICBMs be flying within the hour.
It's not about invading, it's about bullying. If China gets control over the seas around Japan it can always threaten to blockade the Japanese archipelago, holding it in a stranglehold, and then engage in a staring contest over who wants to launch nukes (think Cuban missile crisis). It is necessary to Japan's survival to have unimpeded access to the oceans for trade, and since WW2 it has relied on the United States to guarantee it (the United States is grossly under appreciated in how it's domination of the blue oceans has facilitated global trade and the creation of global GDP). Japan would be extremely uncomfortable if it had to rely on China to guarantee it's ability to trade around the world.
The Moore-Murphy Law: The number of things that will go wrong will double every 2 years.
More than that, being pacifist has kept Japan safe for decades.
I think it's more likely that the U.S. military presence in Japan has kept it safe.
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I wouldn't be surprised if the research is really only concentrated in two areas: 1) Missile defense technologies to counter NK 2) Navel defense technologies to counter China
Though realistically the second I don't really see as a "counter" so much as it is to apply pressure and to posture over territorial claims.
Nah, giant fucking mechs or nothing. It's the Japanese destiny.
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Actually, Ukraine had a treaty where both Russia and US guaranteed its territorial integrity in exchange for post-Soviet nuclear disarmament.
This is somewhat misleading. The treaty Budapest Memorandum stated that both Russia and the U.S. would respect its territorial integrity, not guarantee it. Russia broke this agreement, but there is nothing in the treaty stating that the remaining signatories had to come to Ukraine's defense*.
There are the 6 obligations outlined in the treaty:
1) Respect Belarusian, Kazakh and Ukrainian independence and sovereignty and the existing borders.
2) Refrain from the threat or use of force against Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine.
3) Refrain from using economic pressure on Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine in order to influence its politics.
4) Seek immediate United Nations Security Council action to provide assistance to Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine, "if Belarus/Kazakhstan/Ukraine should become a victim of an act of aggression or an object of a threat of aggression in which nuclear weapons are used".
5) Refrain from the use of nuclear arms against Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine.
6) Consult with one another if questions arise regarding these commitments.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
*#4 would have a bit more teeth if the part about nuclear weapons was left out.
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