Japan's Naval Review

Joshua Rhodes

Japan’s Growing Navy

                Japan, India, and the United States have recently held a naval review and a show of joint naval strength, this was more posed toward china and their aggressive efforts on taking the disputed waters in the South China Sea. Shinzo Abe had recently made changes to the Japanese Constitution to allow more flexibility for the Japanese military to assist any friendly forces. Japan not only showed the size of their navy, but even debuted a new battleship being the largest ship since WW2.

                The fact that Japan has created new ships and is increasing their military size shows their concern for china. The question of if the Japanese should have the right for their own military after their constitution has brought many different opinions and the worry that the United States should be worried about this. No, we shouldn’t. Though the Japanese Navy is growing larger, there are different aspects that must be considered. One being that the United States has the largest navy in the world, followed only by China. Japan’s largest ship, isn’t close to the size of our largest ships. In comparison the new Japanese ship is 248 meters long while the longest U.S. naval ship is 342 meters. Secondly this is not a show of force to the world but a show of joint force against china, a participation of three of the largest navy’s in the world looking directly at China, there should be no real threat to the U.S. until the other mutual threat is handled. The best action for the U.S. is to do nothing and remain protective of our allies. Though Japan and the United States haven’t had the best first impression relationship since WW2, it’s good to see that we are now at a new point of strength since WW2. The relationship between both Countries is different.

                How is china a threat? With the aggressive claims of the islands in the South China Sea, it’s been a major dispute between both China and Japan, this is continuously stressing Japan because they cannot be equally aggressive, the best option for Japan is to build and flex their military strength. The goal for Japan should be a display of soft power toward China only to prevent any further conflict or war. This also puts the U.S. in an interesting position because they don’t want to escalate tension with China, however they also want to control China through joint effort of other countries, another indirect way to control a situation.

                Japan is not the only country that is taking more defensive action towards China’s rapid expansion. There were other countries that took part in the naval review, Australia, South Korea and France also took part, it seems that the world’s largest navy’s all noticed china and has taken action to show that china must control themselves.