In early September of 2014, a panel of nuclear regulators had ruled that the Sendai power plant in southern Japan faced no risk from the several dormant volcanoes in its vicinity. On September 27, 2014, however, nearby Mount Ontake unexpectedly erupted, leading University of Tokyo professor and volcanologist Toshitsugu Fujii to warn that no one could accurately predict volcano eruptions, and that Japan was in danger of experiencing further volcanic disturbances that would endanger a number of nuclear power stations. Sure enough, in late 2016, Mount Sakurajima unexpectedly released a hot, fast-moving flow of gas and sediments that quickly knocked out both reactors at Sendai. This created overwhelming grassroots pressure to shut down any reactors even remotely under the threat of volcanic eruptions. Thus, Japan returned to a state of severely restricted nuclear power supply.
THE END OF THE PAX AMERICANA IN ASIA
The years 2012–2016 brought a fundamental shift in the balance of power in the entire Asia-Pacific region. China’s economy had become arguably the world’s largest. Previously, China had been content to pursue economic growth while largely ignoring geo-political issues and ambitions. But all that started to change with its 2012 occupation of the Philippine-claimed Scarborough Shoal near the Philippine coast. Thereafter, China began to extend its growing power into the seas around it by asserting the “nine-dash line” of control (the sketched line segments on an old map now used by China to determine its area of rightful control), which included nearly all the islands and shoals of the South China Sea. In reaction to the 2012 purchase of the Senkaku Islands by the government of Japan, China asserted its own claim to the islands and began to challenge Japan’s administration of them by sending fishing boats and other vessels into the islands’ waters, as well as by practicing air-force fighter maneuvers in the area. In early 2014, China suddenly established a new Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) that included the Senkakus, as well as reefs and islands claimed by South Korea. Later in the same year, it began oil-drilling operations in waters also claimed by Vietnam. These actions were accompanied by a rapid buildup of Chinese military forces, particularly shore-based anti-ship missile batteries aimed at eventually denying the US Pacific Command and allied forces committed to defending and maintaining stability in the region access to the waters within China’s “first island chain” (Japan, Okinawa, the Ryukyus, the Senkakus, Taiwan, the Paracels, the Spratleys, and the Strait of Malacca).
All eyes had been on the United States to see how the long-time hegemon and guarantor of stability might respond, and a palpable unease could be felt in the region when Washington did not react strongly. In response to the Chinese occupation of the Scarborough Shoal in 2011, the White House had sent the secretary of state to Beijing and Manila to urge negotiations, but had taken no concrete steps to prevent or reverse the Chinese occupation. In what initially appeared to be a success for US diplomacy, China had agreed to talks with Manila. But as the talks dragged on and produced no result, China continued its occupation, and Washington continued to watch. In the case of Japan’s long-disputed—and then, in 2012, openly challenged—sovereignty over the Senkaku Islands, the United States had always held a nuanced position. It had several times stated that it recognized Japan’s present administration of the islands and that it therefore was obliged to defend them as part of Japanese territory under the US-Japan Mutual Security Treaty. In other words, the Senkakus were considered to be under the US nuclear umbrella. At the same time, however, Washington said that it had no opinion on whether China or Japan had rightful sovereignty over the islands, and that such final sovereignty should be determined by negotiation between those two countries. When China announced its new ADIZ, the US Air Force sent two B-2 bombers through the zone without giving prior notice to Chinese authorities, thereby indicating that Washington did not recognize the legitimacy of the zone. However, Washington also advised US airlines operating in the region to abide by the new Chinese ADIZ.
To be sure, Washington had announced it was “pivoting to Asia” in 2012, but in view of these developments, many in the region wondered what the “pivot” really meant. This concern was only heightened when word leaked out of the Pentagon in late 2013 that, in order to avoid a confrontation with China that might pose a direct threat to the United States, as well as to cut costs and avoid excessive US federal budget deficits, the US was considering a possible withdrawal of US forces to China’s “second island chain” (Tokyo Bay, the Bonins, the Marianas, Guam, Palau, and the Sunda Strait). No one in the region was sure whether America really intended to maintain its dominance in the Asia-Pacific region or not.
Then, in late 2016, warning shots from Japanese Self-Defense Force pilots aimed at Chinese fighters overflying the Senkaku Islands accidentally resulted in the downing of one of the Chinese planes. China responded by occupying Uotsuri Island, the largest of the Senkakus. Washington condemned the action and sent ships from the Seventh Fleet to patrol the vicinity, but took no action to dislodge the occupying Chinese. Instead, it urged Japan to negotiate with Beijing for a deal to share administration of the islands. Nor did Washington respond strongly to intelligence leaks pointing to Chinese support for an Okinawan independence movement. Clearly, the US-Japan Mutual Security Treaty had its limits in the case of confrontation with China.
Adding to Japan’s concerns was the growing quasi-alliance between China and South Korea. By 2014, China had become South Korea’s largest trading and investment partner, and South Korea’s largest chaebol corporate conglomerates were now heavily dependent not only on the Chinese market, but also on the country’s technology and skilled labor. The United States, which still had formal command of the South Korean army under the terms of the US-Korea Mutual Defense Treaty of 1953, had been scheduled to transfer command to South Korean generals in 2015. But it advanced the transfer by a year to 2014, thus indicating that it wanted to be less directly responsible for the defense of South Korea. While these shifts were taking place, the relationship between Japan and South Korea was becoming more and more troubled. Korea continued to occupy the Takeshima chain of islets that Japan considered to be rightfully Japanese. Seoul continually rejected Tokyo’s proposals for negotiation. A treaty negotiated in 2013–2014 to enable sharing of national security information by the two countries was rejected by Seoul at the last minute, meaning that the South Korean army could communicate with its putatively allied Japanese army only through the offices of the Pentagon. Underlying the growing coolness of the South Korea-Japan relationship were lingering issues from World War II, such as the drafting of Korean women by the Imperial Japanese Army to become sex slaves, or “comfort women,” for Japanese troops. The flames of this and other wartime issues were fanned each time Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe or his close associates paid homage at Tokyo’s Yasukuni Shrine or appeared to be discussing the negation or rewording of Japan’s apologies for the war.
The fact that China shared South Korea’s resentment of Japan, and resented Abe’s statements as much as—if not more than—Korea did greatly strengthened the growing bond between those two countries. The bond was further reinforced by the growing sense in South Korea that China was more important than the United States for keeping North Korea under control and for eventually opening that country to investment and production by South Korean firms. Thus, news from the Pentagon in late 2016 that the United States was planning to remove its troops from Korea virtually sealed the new China-South Korean alliance.
ABENOMICS IS NOT ENOUGH
By mid-2016, it was becoming clear that the economic policies of Prime Minister Abe—“Abenomics”—were not going to revive the Japanese economy from more than twenty years of stagnation and deflation. This bold program consisted of what Abe called the “three arrows.” The first arrow was aggressive quantitative easing, under which the Bank of Japan essentially created huge quantities of money; the second arrow was increased fiscal stimulus through greater government spending on infrastructure; and the third arrow was structural reform aimed at opening the agricultural sector to greater competition, increasing and elevating the role of women in society and in the economy, stimulating start-up of new businesses through deregulation, and reforming stultified corporate structures and practices. This had all been aimed at generating an inflation rate of at least 2 percent while raising GDP and productivity growth. The