China calls for respect of sovereignty as U.S. widens airstrikes in Iraq, Syria

BEIJING, Sept. 11 -- Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Hua Chunying on Thursday called for respect of the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of the countries concerned as U.S. President Barack Obama vowed to stage a sweeping airstrike campaign in both Iraq and Syria.
In response to a question about Obama's announcement to make "a steady, relentless effort" to root out the Islamic State extremists in Iraq, Hua said the international law should be respected in the international fight against terrorism.
"We hold that in the international struggle against terrorism, the international law should be respected, as well as the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of the countries concerned," Hua said.
The U.S. President announced in a speech on Wednesday night local time they will lead an expanded global coalition to address the threat of terrorism. Obama authorized U.S. airstrikes inside Syria for the first time and vowed to send another 475 U.S. troops into Iraq.
The U.S. military has so far conducted about 150 airstrikes on Islamic State targets inside Iraq.
Hua said China firmly opposes any form of terrorism. She said the international community should jointly fight against terrorism and support the effort that the related countries made to maintain internal security and stability.
Hua said at present, the international fight against terrorism is in a grim and complex situation. Since the rise of international terrorism has yet to be stemmed,chronic disturbance in certain regions has provided opportunities for activities by international terrorist forces, Hua said.
 She said these factors have brought about new threats to international security and stability and new challenges to the international fight against terrorism.
"We hope that under joint effort of the international community, the countries concerned would resume order and stability as soon as possible and realize reconciliation, peace and development," Hua said, adding that this will help eliminate the rise of terrorism in the places and realize sustainable peace and stability in the region.
Hua said China is ready to abide by the principle of mutual respect, equality and cooperation to strengthen anti-terrorist cooperation with the rest of the international community and maintain global peace and stability.

 Editor:Sun Zhao、Yao Chun
Source: People's Daily

Japan, U.S. discussing offensive military capability for Tokyo

10th September, 2014, Tokyo - Japan and the United States are exploring the possibility of Tokyo acquiring offensive weapons that would allow Japan to project power far beyond its borders, Japanese officials said, a move that would likely infuriate China.

While Japan’s intensifying rivalry with China dominates the headlines, Tokyo’s focus would be the ability to take out North Korean missile bases, said three Japanese officials involved in the process.

They said Tokyo was holding the informal, previously undisclosed talks with Washington about capabilities that would mark an enhancement of military might for a country that has not fired a shot in anger since its defeat in World War Two.

The talks on what Japan regards as a “strike capability” are preliminary and do not cover specific hardware at this stage, the Japanese officials told Reuters.

Defense experts say an offensive capability would require a change in Japan’s purely defensive military doctrine, which could open the door to billions of dollars worth of offensive missile systems and other hardware. These could take various forms, such as submarine-fired cruise missiles similar to the U.S. Tomahawk.

U.S. officials said there were no formal discussions on the matter but did not rule out the possibility that informal contacts on the issue had taken place. One U.S. official said Japan had approached American officials informally last year about the matter.

Japan’s military is already robust but is constrained by a pacifist Constitution. The Self Defense Forces have dozens of naval surface ships, 16 submarines and three helicopter carriers, with more vessels under construction. Japan is also buying 42 advanced F-35 stealth fighter jets.

Reshaping the military into a more assertive force is a core policy of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. He has reversed a decade of military spending cuts, ended a ban on Japanese troops fighting abroad and eased curbs on arms exports.

Tokyo had dropped a request to discuss offensive capabilities during high-profile talks on revising guidelines for the U.S.-Japan security alliance which are expected to be finished by year-end, the Japanese officials said. Instead, the sensitive issue was “being discussed on a separate track”, said one official with direct knowledge of the matter.

But any deal with Washington is years away and the obstacles are significant - from the costs to the heavily indebted Japanese government to concerns about ties with Asian neighbors such as China and sensitivities within the alliance itself.

The Japanese officials said their U.S. counterparts were cautious to the idea, partly because it could outrage China, which accuses Abe of reviving wartime militarism.

The officials declined to be identified because they were not authorised to discuss the closed-door deliberations. A Japanese Defense Ministry spokesman said he could not comment on negotiations with Washington.

Japan would need U.S. backing for any shift in military doctrine because it would change the framework of the alliance, often described as America supplying the “sword” of forward-based troops and nuclear deterrence while Japan holds the defensive “shield”.

Washington did not have a position on upgrading Japan’s offensive capabilities, “in part because the Japanese have not developed a specific concept or come to us with a specific request”, said another U.S. official.

“We’re not there yet - and they’re not there yet,” the official said. “We’re prepared to have that conversation when they’re ready.”

North Korea lies less than 600 km (370 miles) from Japan at the closest point.

Pyongyang, which regularly fires short-range rockets into the sea separating the Koreas from Japan, has improved its ballistic missile capabilities and conducted three nuclear weapons tests, its most recent in February 2013.

In April, North Korea said that in the event of war on the Korean Peninsula, Japan would be “consumed in nuclear flames”.

Part of Japan’s motivation for upgrading its capabilities is a nagging suspicion that the United States, with some 28,000 troops in South Korea as well as 38,000 in Japan, might hesitate to attack the North in a crisis, Japanese experts said.

U.S. forces might hold off in some situations, such as if South Korea wanted to prevent an escalation, said Narushige Michishita, a national security adviser to the Japanese government from 2004-2006.

“We might want to maintain some kind of limited strike capability in order to be able to initiate a strike, so that we can tell the Americans, ‘unless you do the job for us, we will have to do it on our own,’” said Michishita, a security expert at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo.

Reflecting Japan’s concerns, Abe told parliament in May 2013 that it was vital “not to give the mistaken impression that the American sword would not be used” in an emergency.

“At this moment is it really acceptable for Japan to have to plead with the U.S. to attack a missile threatening to attack Japan?” Abe said.

Under current security guidelines, in the event of a ballistic missile attack, “U.S. forces will provide Japan with necessary intelligence and consider, as necessary, the use of forces providing additional strike power”.

The informal discussions on offensive capabilities cover all options, from Japan continuing to rely completely on Washington to getting the full panoply of weaponry itself.

Japan would like to reach a conclusion in about five years, and then start acquiring hardware, one Japanese official said.

Tokyo had wanted the discussions included in the review of the Japan-U.S. Defense Cooperation Guidelines that are expected to cover areas such as logistical support and cybersecurity. Those talks, which formally kicked off last October, are the first in 17 years.

But the United States was keen to keep discussions on offensive capabilities separate to avoid riling China and South Korea, another Japanese official said. Beijing and Seoul each have territorial disputes with Tokyo and accuse Abe of failing to atone for Japan’s wartime aggression.

Reflecting the sensitivities of the issue even in Japan, any talk of an upgraded offensive capability is shrouded in euphemism.

Itsunori Onodera, who stepped down last week as defense minister in a broad cabinet reshuffle, a year ago described it as “the capability to attack enemies’ military bases and strategic bases for the sake of self-defense”.

Defense guidelines compiled by the government in December watered this down to a “potential form of response capability to address the means of ballistic-missile launches and related facilities”.

Written by: Nobuhiro Kubo

Source: Japan Today

Gunjan Singh, a PhD Candidate at the centre, on Pentagon Report on China

Gunjan Singh, a PhD Candidate at the centre and Research Assistant at IDSA, New Delhi explores the merits of Pentagon Report on China. She criticized the report and says that report reveals nothing new and nothing that was not already known. It appears to be a compilation of developments which were in discussion in open forums for the last one year. As far as China’s military budget is concerned it has always been a matter of speculation for people who are trying to analyze Chinese military developments. Secondly, cyber attacks have already generated huge attention and anxiety among defence establishments around the world........

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SRIPARNA PATHAK, Research Scholar at the Centre, on Japan- American relations: (Absence of) Evolution in the 21st Century

SRIPARNA PATHAK locates the evolving Japan- American relations in the 21st Century.

When Barack Hussein Obama was sworn in as the President of the United States of America, his assumption of office was accompanied by the slogan, “Change is Here”. However, reflecting upon Japan- America relations, one hardly sees any change. The specific issue in question being that of the removal of American troops (U.S. Marine Corps Base at Futenma, on Okinawa).

When Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama went to attend last month’s nuclear summit in Washington, Mr. Hatoyama’s officials lobbied hard for a one on one meeting between Yukio and Obama. The request was rudely refused and the Japanese Prime Minister had to settle for a meeting of merely ten minutes with Obama, over dinner. The treatment meted out to the Japanese Prime Minister was definitely humiliating as has been pointed out by the Japanese media. The humiliation extended to Barack Obama bluntly informing Mr. Hatoyama that he was running out of time to settle the dispute over relocation of a U.S. Marine Corps base at Futenma on Okinawa, and asked him directly whether he was trustworthy.

When Mr. Hatoyama’s Democratic Party won the elections in Japan in August 2009, Mr. Hatoyama had largely put forth ideas about Japan’s independent voice in the world, and about loosening American dominance. Nevertheless, these have been responded to by the United States with warnings about the consequences for Japan and the Asia Pacific region.

After the Second World War, Japanese foreign policy has largely been pacifist in nature, and the presence of the Seventh Fleet in Japan has been a perpetual reality since then. This can be seen as a signal that the legacy of the Cold War lives on even till date, not just in the fact that there are two Koreas, but also in the fact that the United States of America sees it essential that a fleet be positioned in Japan to safeguard it, and/or to ensure that a belligerent Japan preceding the Second World War does not become a reality once again.

Nevertheless the international system has undergone several changes since the decade of the 1950s. Strategic moves and tactics that are realist in nature can no longer ensure international security. Conceptions of international security as such, particularly in the 21st century are completely different from what used to be in the 1950s. As such current discourses on international security are directed by the notions and the need for growth, sustainable development, enhancement of trade and economic cooperation, and not by ideas on military acquisitions or preparations for war. Thus, the realist paradigm through which U.S. policies on Okinawa seem to be operating needs a serious rethink.

Besides this, the tactics of bullying and playing the ‘big brother’ need to be done away with. The U.S. might be the strongest in terms of military power, but that does not change the fact that the current international system is multipolar in nature with states such as Japan, China and India playing important roles.

The Asian culture largely respects the ‘other’ and deems it essential to treat ‘guests’ with reverence. This however does not mean that snubbing and bluntness can be imposed on the leaders or heads of states with cultures that are seen as more hospitable.

Analysing tenets of Robert Putnam’s Game Theory in international relations, diplomats or those engaged in bilateral negotiations or discussions always aim at getting the better position in the bargain. However international relations, particularly in the 21st century, is not a zero sum game and both the parties attempt to ensure that the outcome is at least a win-win outcome for both the parties. Even this theory proves inadequate to analyse the meeting between Obama and Yukio, because the American side clearly seeks to bully and overpower, denying the Japanese side even the scope to place its side on the negotiating table. Thus, American foreign policy vis- a- vis Japan cannot be even called realist in nature. It is simply tactics of bullying, snubbing, dominating and threatening that are in clear play, and as such need a serious rethink.

Prof. V.P. Dutt, an CEAS alumnus, on "India, China and the United States: The Triangle that isn't"

Prof. V.P. Dutt, first PhD in Chinese Studies from the Centre and Former V-C, University of Delhi, delivered an excellent lecture on "India, China and the United States: The Triangle that isn't" at IDSA, New Delhi.

Photo: Courtesy IDSA

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