The Japanese navy 'Asagiri'-class destroyer JS 'Yuugiri,' top, the Sri Lanka navy Advanced Offshore ... [+]
U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Adam Butler
Japanese authorities, increasingly worried about China’s determination to invade and forcibly “reunify” Taiwan, reportedly asked American officials to share U.S. plans for defending Taiwan.
That’s the bombshell news from Financial Times reporters Demetri Sevastopulo and Kathrin Hille.
The Americans “demurred,” Sevastopulo and Hille wrote, “because it wanted to focus on boosting co-ordination with Tokyo in phases.”
A “former U.S. official” told the reporters the goal was for the U.S. and Japanese armed forces eventually to write a single integrated plan for a Taiwan contingency.
It’s fairly obvious what that means. The geography of the western Pacific region essentially dictates the role Japan would play in an allied defense of Taiwan.
The real revelation in Sevastopulo and Hille’s reporting isn’t the prospect of a joint U.S.-Japanese war plan. It’s that Japanese leaders apparently have resigned themselves to war in the event China invades Taiwan.
That was not always a foregone conclusion.
It’s quite clear that the United States needs Japanese support in order to stand any chance of defeating a Chinese invasion attempt. The bulk of U.S. forces in the western Pacific stage from Japanese bases including Kadena air base in Okinawa, Misawa air base on Honshu and Japanese ports including Yokosuka and Sasebo.
Ideally during a counter-invasion campaign, the Japanese government not only would allow U.S. force to launch combat operations from American bases on Japanese soil—Japanese troops also would join the operations.
There’s a growing likelihood they’d do so, if the rhetoric coming out of Tokyo is any indication. “We are family with Taiwan,” Yasuhide Nakayama, Japan’s defense minister, said during an online event on Monday. Taiwan’s integrity “is clearly related to Okinawa’s protection.”
