North Korea's unannounced launch of a three stage Taepo Dong 1 missile, which passed over Japan on 31st August 1998, aroused many Japanese from the delusion that security problems can be ignored, or left to others to resolve1 China's growing assertiveness is also causing concern in Japan.
How can Japan conduct a sensible security policy? Japan's reaction to the North Korean missile launch, and to the longer term problem of China's strategic ambition, must be commensurate with the threat. Chauvinist sentiment exists everywhere in North Asia, and could be a wild card that gets out of hand.
Sensible security policy should begin with a look at the map. Japan is an industrialized but resource-poor archipelago barely off the eastern edge of Eurasia. The essential fact of Japan's strategic geography is that Japan could be controlled without need for invasion.
Without maritime protection, Japan would be vulnerable to any hostile power on the Eurasian mainland that develops maritime power for this purpose.2 With the collapse of the Soviet Union, China is the current chief candidate. Because of Japan's need for maritime protection, alliance with the United States, the dominant maritime power, represents optimal security for Japan.
But alliances are two-way streets, and the United States cannot shoulder all the burdens of East Asian security. Japan needs to build on the security provided by its alliance with the United States in order to position itself as an essential pole of stability in Asia. A strengthened alliance between these two democratic maritime powers is vital to the maintenance of a balance of power in East Asia. China is entitled to respect as a great power. But China must consider the rights and interests of others, including the maritime security needs of Japan, the other great power of East Asia.
Japan also needs to co-operate more closely with others who need maritime protection, including South Korea and Australia. Greater co-operation among these American allies would do much to encourage the wobbly Southeast Asians to resist China's assertions of hegemony based on size and centrality. The archipelagic states of Indonesia and the Philippines, astride the vital sea routes of East Asia, are in dire need of support.
