In their joint statement delivered on Jan 11, US President Joe Biden "commended Japan's bold leadership in fundamentally reinforcing its defense capabilities" as illustrated in the new National Security Strategy, National Defense Strategy and Defense Buildup Program.
Considering the fact that US House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy established the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition between the United States and China almost immediately upon taking office, and that the bill passed by 365 votes to 65 in the House, there are quite a few politicians in Washington that view the world's largest developing country as a competitor, even a potential enemy. For them, a re-militarized Japan can act as a guard dog at the door of the "Indo-Pacific" to keep China contained.
But few of them might realize how fierce their imagined guard dog is. According to data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Japan's defense-related expenditure reached $50.69 billion in 2021,$647 million higher than that of 2020. The spending had already exceeded the 1 percent ceiling set by its so-called pacifist Constitution that Japanese politicians have vowed to break.
Japan's maritime Self-Defense Force ranks fourth in the world, and it has more than 150 ships that exceed 550,000 in tonnage, more than those of the United Kingdom and France.
Notably, it has two Izumo-class so-called helicopter carriers, one bearing the name Kaga that belonged to a sunken Imperial Japanese Navy aircraft carrier that participated in both the Shanghai Incident and the attack on Pearl Harbor. In October 2021, the two ships passed the US Navy's test landing of an F-35B fighter plane, showing that they could easily be turned into aircraft carriers, and so giving up the pretense that they were not built for that purpose.
Further, on Jan 11, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida signed a defense pact with his UK counterpart Rishi Sunak in London allowing the two countries to station troops on each other's soil, a move that reminds the world of their alliance in 1902.
History always tends to repeat itself. Seventy-seven years after its unconditional surrender as a Fascist power, Japan is not only gaining military capability as it did before World War II, but also making arrangements with the Western powers that tried to appease it in the 1930s.
Even the appeasers are the same.
But the planners in Washington should beware their guard dog showing itself to be a wolf that does not heed the voice of its master.
That was the fatal mistake the US made in the 1930s. By continuing to export crude oil and used steel to imperial Japan even after the latter launched an invasion against China, the US not only deepened the sufferings of the Chinese people, but also suffered the Pearl Harbor attack on itself.