日本对中俄做出“理性”反应：但这只是开始

要打破日本1945年后在军事问题上的缄默和克制立场，需要很大的努力。但中国和俄罗斯已经做到了这一点——让日本领导人坚信日本需要”反击”能力来保护自己免受日益增长的威胁。

日本的鹰派新立场将在周五来访的岸田文雄(Fumio Kishida)首相和拜登总统的白宫会议上得到充分展示。日本领导人将解释他在11月作出的决定，即寻求议会批准每年将国内生产总值的2%用于国防，大约是日本一直以来国防支出的两倍。

拜登的国家安全委员会负责区域政策的库尔特-坎贝尔（Kurt Campbell）认为，”这对亚洲来说是一个拐点”。它使日本从对其自身软实力和美国武器的依赖转向真正的军事伙伴关系。它重新绘制了安全地图，在印度洋-太平洋和大西洋地区建立了类似北约的遏制联盟。

日本对这些飞行表示”严重关切”。但是中国和俄罗斯在11月底再次行动，派遣两架中国重型轰炸机和两架俄罗斯飞机飞越日本海。这一次，东京再次表示”严重关切”，同样没有得到中俄的明确回应。

另一个警钟出现在2022年8月，在众议院议长南希-佩洛西（民主党-加州）访问台湾后，中国在一连串的军事演习中向日本的”专属经济区”发射了五枚导弹。”我们已经通过外交渠道提出强烈抗议，”日本前防卫大臣、现在担任首相特别顾问的岸信夫（Nobuo Kishi）说。美国驻东京大使拉姆-伊曼纽尔（Rahm Emanuel）在一次采访中告诉我，教训是”台湾海峡的任何事情都不会只停留在台湾海峡”。

在过去的一年里，日本已经从谈话转向了行动。一个很大的原因是俄罗斯对乌克兰的入侵使日本感到非常震惊，此次入侵发生在俄罗斯和中国宣布建立”无限制”伙伴关系后不到一个月。”世界已经发生了巨大变化，日本人深知这一点，”伊曼纽尔说。

岸田，虽然是一个政治上软弱的新首相，但仍积极行动起来支持乌克兰。日本迅速派出军事和人道主义援助，并在2022年3月成功游说东盟10国中的8国支持联合国谴责俄罗斯入侵的决议。

“岸田很早就明白，俄罗斯对乌克兰的入侵代表了印度-太平洋和欧洲世界必须联合起来。他看到了对世界秩序的根本挑战，”坎贝尔说。因此，他解释说，岸田没有采取依靠美国来解决问题的通常做法，而是”决定与欧洲建立共同的事业”。

日本安全问题的核心是导弹，而且不仅仅是来自中国，还有朝鲜定期测试飞越日本领土的弹道导弹。十年前，日本在反导弹技术上投入了大量资金，希望这能削弱其受到的威胁。但几年前，日本的军事规划人员意识到，一个对手即可摧毁他们的导弹防御盾牌，因此他们需要更多的东西。

“反击”战略应该提供这样的保护。美国将向日本提供400至500枚战斧导弹，可以打击中国或朝鲜的导弹基地。日本还希望保护其天基防御资产，其中包括卫星制导炸弹和日本版的美国全球定位系统，免受中国不断扩大的反卫星武器库的影响。因此，拜登政府将延长美国与日本的长期安全条约，以涵盖太空中的攻击。

日本的新激进主义将不可避免地在中国引发反弹，中国对日本军事力量有着深深的反感，可以追溯到20世纪30年代和40年代初的日本占领时期。如果你怀疑这一点，只需参观一下南京的大屠杀纪念馆，那里记录了日本在1937年对该城市的野蛮攻击。自1945年战败以来，日本一直不考虑进行权力投射，部分原因是出于对这种历史记忆的敬畏。

日本仍然是一个非常和平的国家。但是，过去的比重正在减轻，年轻的日本人希望有更强大的军队来对付好战的邻国。去年夏天，日本新闻社（Jiji Press）的一项民意调查显示，在18至29岁的受访者中，75%的人支持增加国防开支，而这个年龄段的人中，超过60%的人赞成增强日本的”反击能力”。

中国正处于可能是历史上最大的军事力量集结的早期阶段。俄罗斯对乌克兰的入侵有效地结束了后冷战时代。日本正在对这些变化做出理性反应。但要注意：随着全球秩序的崩溃，一连串的行动和反应才刚刚开始。

（ 注：本文作者：David Ignatius，翻译：Deyu Wang。）

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附录：华盛顿邮报的原文

The Washington Post|Opinion

Japan is reacting to Russia and China rationally. It is only the beginning.

David Ignatius

January 12, 2023 at 6:30 p.m. EST

It takes a lot to break Japan’s post-1945 stance of reticence and restraint in military matters. But China and Russia have accomplished just that — by convincing Japanese leaders that they need “counterstrike” capability to protect themselves against growing threats.

Japan’s hawkish new stance will be on display Friday at a White House meeting between visiting Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and President Biden. The Japanese leader will explain his decision in November to seek parliamentary approval to spend 2 percent of gross domestic product annually on defense, roughly doubling what Japan has been spending.

“This is an inflection point” for Asia, argues Kurt Campbell, who oversees regional policy for Biden’s National Security Council. It moves Japan from reliance on its own soft power and U.S. weapons to a real military partnership. And it redraws the security map, framing a NATO-like alliance of containment in the Indo-Pacific as well as the Atlantic.

Japan expressed “serious concerns” about the flights. But China and Russia did it again in late November, sending two Chinese heavy bombers and two Russian planes over the Sea of Japan. This time Tokyo expressed “severe concerns,” again with no apparent response.

Another wake-up call came in August, when China fired five missiles into Japan’s “exclusive economic zone” during a spasm of military exercises after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) visited Taiwan. “We have protested strongly through diplomatic channels,” said Nobuo Kishi, Japan’s former defense minister who now serves as a special adviser to the prime minister. The lesson was that “nothing in the Taiwan Strait stays in the Taiwan Strait,” Rahm Emanuel, the U.S. ambassador to Tokyo, told me in an interview.

Japan has moved from talk to action over the past year. A big reason is shock over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, coming less than a month after Russia and China announced a “no limits” partnership. “The world has changed in a dramatic fashion, and the Japanese know it,” Emanuel said.

Kishida, though a new and politically weak prime minister, moved aggressively to support Ukraine. Japan quickly sent military and humanitarian assistance, and in March it successfully lobbied eight of the 10 ASEAN countries to back a U.N. resolution condemning Russia’s invasion.

“Kishida understood early that the Russian attack on Ukraine represented a blending of the Indo-Pacific and European worlds. He saw a fundamental challenge to world order,” says Campbell. So, rather than adopt the usual approach of relying on the United States to fix matters, he explains, Kishida “decided to make common cause with Europe.”

The heart of Japan’s security problem is missiles, and not just from China; North Korea regularly tests ballistic missiles that overfly Japanese territory. A decade ago, Japan invested heavily in antimissile technologies, hoping that this would blunt the threat. But several years ago, Japanese military planners realized that an adversary could overwhelm their missile-defense shield. They needed something more.

The “counterstrike” strategy should offer that. The United States will provide Japan with 400 to 500 Tomahawk missiles that can hit missile sites in China or North Korea. Japan also wants to protect its space-based defense assets, which include satellite-guided bombs and a Japanese version of the U.S. Global Positioning System, from China’s expanding antisatellite arsenal. So, the Biden administration will extend the long-standing U.S. security treaty with Japan to cover attacks in space.

Japan’s new militancy will inevitably trigger a backlash in China, where there’s a deep antipathy to Japanese military power dating back to Japanese occupation in the 1930s and early ’40s. If you doubt it, just visit the museum in Nanjing that documents Japan’s savage assault on the city in 1937. Japan has disdained power projection since its defeat in 1945 partly in deference to such historical memories.

Japan is still a deeply peaceful country. But the weight of the past is easing, and younger Japanese want a stronger military to deal with belligerent neighbors. A poll last summer by Jiji Press showed that 75 percent of respondents between 18 and 29 supported increased defense spending, and over 60 percent of that age group favored Japanese “counterstrike capabilities.”

China is in the early stages of what might be the biggest military buildup in history. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine effectively ended the post-Cold War era. Japan is reacting to those developments rationally. But beware: As the global order frays, the chain of action and reaction is only beginning.