Japan wants the region to get used to voyages by its warships

When the Japan Maritime Self-Defence Force (JMSDF) sent its largest ship for its maiden voyage to South-east Asia in 2017, the 27,000-tonne aircraft carrier lookalike attracted a lot of attention from regional observers even before the ship left home.

Extensive media coverage on the voyage reflected the region's unease with what was perceived as a resurgence of Japan's navy.

It showed that memories of Japan's Asian conquests during World War II have not faded away.

The JMSDF ship in the spotlight was the helicopter destroyer JS Izumo. She called at Singapore’s Changi Naval Base last week for the second time but her visit attracted far less attention than before.

Minimal media coverage of Izumo's latest visit to the region is a plus for Tokyo. Indeed, the lack of interest may even be desired because it shows that regional observers have become desensitised to the annual JMSDF cruises that have used the Izumo-class ships as its centrepiece.

Three visits in three years, with Izumo alternating with her sistership JS Kaga, have dimmed the newsiness of such voyages to the extent that they have become the new normal.

Yet signs are that Tokyo is not taking things for granted, going by its efforts behind the scenes to ensure that the goodwill does not fizzle out.

More than any other participant at the recently-concluded Imdex Asia maritime defence exhibition and conference in Singapore, the JMSDF made extra efforts to share its vision for a free and open Indo-Pacific when it invited academics from Singapore's leading think tanks for a dialogue session on the deployment.

No other navy at Imdex is known to have reached out to academia in this manner.

Rear-Admiral Hiroshi Egawa, commander of the JMSDF Escort Flotilla 1, who is the officer leading 590 men and women aboard Izumo and her escort, JS Murasame, said Singapore is the first stop on their Indo-Pacific deployment.

Both ships left Japan in April and will also call at Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam during their two-month tour.

Rear-Admiral Egawa's 45-minute engagement and the question and answer session were done in English, a departure from Japanese government protocol for official briefings.

The switch to English starting from last year’s cruise underlines the JMSDF's adaptability and determination to engage stakeholders directly with nothing lost in translation.

It was also likely a tacit recognition that having the first briefing done fully in Japanese, with each remark painstakingly translated, did not quite work as well as Tokyo had hoped.

Rear-Admiral Egawa made it clear that when it comes to engaging the region, the JMSDF is "thinking long-term".

This is reflected in efforts to network with young naval officers during occasions like Imdex Asia — which drew 25 warships from 15 countries — as well as visits to local schools and briefings for academics and the media.

What does Tokyo want from all these engagements?

It is the long game that Tokyo is after and from Rear-Admiral Egawa's presentation, it was pretty clear that cruises to the region by the JMSDF's largest ships are very likely to be an annual affair.

The Japanese outreach is noteworthy because regional powers like China and India are not doing the same.

The JMSDF's almost evangelical zeal as it embarks on its annual flag-waving voyages gives Tokyo precious strategic leverage as it attempts to win more hearts and minds.

Singapore and the Philippines are two countries the JMSDF has visited on all three cruises since 2017.

Singapore’s location at the southernmost point of Asia astride sea lanes linking the South China Sea and Indian Ocean that carry half the world’s trade makes it an important stopover.

Notably, the Republic has been the JMSDF's first stop for the past three voyages.

Japan and the Philippines share common maritime concerns. Since 2017, JMSDF visits to Subic Bay have seen Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte make time to tour the big ships and Izumo’s upcoming port call there should once again be a reminder of the special nature of that security relationship.

All this outreach is building towards a crescendo which we will see in the next decade.

Last December, Japan's National Defence Program Guideline outlined its strategic aim to convert the Izumo-class ships into "multipurpose destroyers" from which F-35B fighter jets would fly.

Work should start within the next five years so that some of Japan's 42 F-35Bs, which are capable of short take-offs and vertical landings, can be deployed on the Izumo-class ships.

Factor in time needed to integrate mothership and fighter jets for operations at sea and we should see the JMSDF possess aircraft carriers in all but name in 10 years or less.

In that sense, Japan’s outreach efforts now can be seen as attempts to counter a hostile reception to the "multipurpose destroyers" carrying F-35B aircraft in the region.

It would take more than the JMSDF’s annual show-and-tell to change perceptions of its intentions in the region.  

But with the growing number of young people who have experienced JMSDF hospitality and the steadily expanding list of regional academics hosted by its ships, the outreach is part of a vital long-game pursuit that tries to show the benign nature of Japanese sea power.

While there is no certainty of success, it is clear Tokyo has the field to itself as regional players have not embarked on a counter narrative.

Even China and South Korea, who dispute Japan’s maritime claims, have not tried to match the sustained and wide-ranging outreach spearheaded by the JMSDF.

Such inertia may suggest their scepticism over the usefulness of such cruises.

The Americans, with their assertive interpretation of “freedom of navigation operations” off Chinese-held islets in the South China Sea, may be quietly pleased that the JMSDF serves as a counterweight to Chinese maritime ambitions.

Earlier this month, Izumo and Murasame trained with naval vessels from India, the Philippines and the US for a week while sailing through the South China Sea, making this four-way-sail-through the first of its kind.

To be sure, with only one major cruise a year, the JMSDF does not have much time to sweeten the ground.

But it seems clear that JMSDF will waste no efforts in making use of its voyages to prepare the region to be more receptive for the day when the revamped Izumo-class ships return in a different guise.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

David Boey is a former defence journalist and a member of the Singapore Ministry of Defence’s Advisory Council on Community Relations in Defence. He also blogs on defence issues.