Policy Recommendations

In October, 30 international relations experts from Japan, South Korea, the United States and China came together in Tokyo to discuss pressing issues, especially relating to security in East Asia.

These conversations took place during the first edition of an international conference, the East Asia Quadrilateral Dialogue, or "the Quad,” hosted by the New Diplomacy Initiative, a Tokyo-based think tank, along with American and South Korean organizations.

The three-day meeting ended with a joint statement in which participants pledged to hold the gathering annually and to continue working together for peace.

"The Quad" is also the name of a cooperative framework between the governments of another four-country grouping — Japan, the U.S., Australia and India — and in this case is shorthand for Quadrilateral Security Dialogue. After a brief stint in the late 2000s, the Quad grouping was revived in 2017, with a strong emphasis on military competition with China.

"We are the alternative Quad,” one of the American organizers told me at the October conference.

In recent years, almost all East Asian countries have strengthened their military capabilities. Japan’s postwar national security policy for nearly 80 years, based on its so-called peace Constitution, was to maintain an exclusively defensive capability, but in December 2022, three security documents were revised to obtain an enemy base strike capability and double the annual defense budget.

On its part, the Western camp has been preoccupied not only with strengthening strategic countries' militaries, but creating several cooperative frameworks between its allies and partners, the Quad being one of them. Other examples are the "free and open Indo-Pacific," which covers the Indian Ocean Rim to the Pacific Rim and was created in 2016 based on a proposal by then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, and AUKUS, the Australia-U.K.-U.S. security initiative, established in 2021.

Furthermore, the leaders of Japan, South Korea and the United States met in August and decided that military exercises between the three countries would be conducted annually. In the past few years, the United Kingdom, France, Australia and Canada have also participated in military exercises in Japan’s backyard.

These policies are primarily aimed at countering what is perceived and portrayed as an expansionist China, as well as North Korea and Russia, authoritarian regimes seen as close to Beijing.
The question, though, is whether all this has made us safer. Have these attempts improved peace and stability in the region? Just by looking at the events of the past six months, we cannot necessarily say so.

China and Russia conducted joint military exercises near Japan. In September, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un met with Russian President Vladimir Putin deep in eastern Russia — as if in response to the Japan-South Korea-U.S. summit held over the summer — to demonstrate the possibility of future military cooperation. Russia has also proposed joint military exercises between China, Russia and North Korea, and decided to withdraw from the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, raising concerns that it may resume nuclear testing.

According to the U.S., China is intent on increasing the number of its nuclear warheads from the low 200s it had in 2020 to over 1,000 by 2030. North Korea has continued its missile tests, launching a military reconnaissance satellite in November and conducting an intercontinental ballistic missile launch drill in December.

In response, Japan has conducted evacuation drills in the event of missile attacks, and when North Korea launched its satellite recently, televisions across the country broadcast an evacuation alert that lasted for about 30 minutes.

In light of all this, few Japanese citizens consider the security environment in the region to be stable.

For Tokyo, the purpose of strengthening its military is to enhance deterrence. The logic of deterrence is to make belligerent nations aware of our ability and willingness to inflict damage on a scale that is not commensurate with the objectives of war-mongering opponents.

However, when it comes to China, there is serious concern about its willingness to use force against Taiwan. If China believed that Taiwanese independence would undermine the core interests of the ruling Chinese Communist Party and cannot be tolerated at any cost, it would be difficult to deter Beijing through military superiority alone.

To avoid an actual conflict, it is essential not only to deter China by military force but also to leave room for it to believe that its core interests will not be threatened even if it decides not to resort to military action. In other words, to provide reassurance. In the case of a confrontation over Taiwan, since the 1970s, countries' political will to adopt the “one China” policy was designed to provide that very reassurance. Now, it is important to reaffirm this principle and act accordingly.

Deterrence through military force, instead, leads to countermeasures being developed by each side, resulting in an endless arms race. And if deterrence breaks down, the heightened countermeasures would lead to even more catastrophic results. If tensions continue to rise in East Asia, the slightest error or misunderstanding could lead to open conflict, and quickly escalate into a major war. To avoid this, diplomacy aimed at easing tensions is absolutely necessary.

The most important party Japan needs to dialogue with is China. Summits between leaders are important and a multilayered framework for institutionalized dialogue must be created at all levels of government.

Diplomacy in the civil society sphere is also critical in the current climate of limited dialogue between these and other governments.

During our "alternative Quad" gathering, interlocutors from the four participating countries were very frank in their discussions.

For example, in China, both experts and the government have stated that the country’s expansionist policies do not intend to infringe on the interests of other nations, but are aimed at furthering its own development. In response to this rhetoric, a South Korean expert — after stating that he would like to have good relations with China and is criticized in his country for being pro-Beijing — said that "public opinion polls in Japan and Korea show that the overwhelming majority of people do not like China. The Chinese people should accept this reality and think hard about why.”

A Chinese participant also commented: "I am tired of all the deterrence discussion. What are we going to do with deterrence? Isn't deterrence supposed to give us more time so that we can use that time to conduct diplomacy to improve relations? But there is no effort to do that at all." Another Chinese participant asked whether the U.S. isn't aiming for a unilateral victory.

All these comments raise important points. While three days of discussions among stakeholders from four key countries does not mean that anything will drastically change, it is significant that experts with a certain degree of influence in their respective societies spent time together — exchanging honest opinions and sharing the will to continue working together to prevent a regional war.

The cumulative effect of such events — which fall under the umbrella of “private” diplomacy and that should also involve the business community, academia and other parts of civil society — would be to ease confrontations between nations and create a social atmosphere that is more receptive to government-led diplomacy. For this reason, dialogue, not just military might, must be strengthened and expanded.

Sayo Saruta is a founding member and president of the New Diplomacy Initiative, a Tokyo-based think tank. She is the author of “Pioneering the Way for a New Japan-U.S. Diplomacy: Okinawa, Security, Nuclear Power, TPP — Conveying Diverse Views to Washington DC” (Shueisha, 2016)

This article was first published in The Japan Times (Jan 8, 2024)