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asia policy
military normalization of the country and acted as a brake on the process.
In negotiations with the LDP in May and June 2014 regarding the various
options, the party, after persuading the LDP to drop several scenarios that
appeared too unrealistic, argued that most gray-zone scenarios could be
handled by the JCG with law-enforcement measures. 25
For these two sets of reasons, legislation to redefine the responsibilities
of the police, JCG, and JSDF could not be passed. The government agreed
instead to improve the application of the existing legal arrangement. 26 In other
words, the JCG and JSDF would have to improve their coordination at the
operational level to make up for the failure to build an ad hoc law.
The case for a legal arrangement was subsequently brought up by
the opposition parties. In summer 2015 the Democratic Party of Japan
and the Japan Innovation Party jointly proposed a territorial security bill
(ryoiki keibi hoan) aiming to define priority zones in the East China Sea in
which the JSDF would take over the primary responsibility for patrol and
defense. 27 This bill was rejected on the ground that it would have the effect
of identifying the weak points or “soft bellies” in Japan’s territorial defense.
Another version with small modifications was submitted in February 2016
with the same fate. 28 Yet despite these repeated failures in the Diet, this
policy proposal was still part of the opposition’s political program for the
July 2016 upper house elections. 29
The Civilian Nature of the JCG: Whither Article 25?
The JCG’s resistance to the adoption of a legal framework that would
better integrate its activities with those of the JMSDF is explained by
the coast guard’s strategic culture. First, the Maritime Security Agency
(which was renamed the JCG in 2000) was created in 1948—before the
establishment of the JMSDF in 1954. As a result, the JCG considers the
JMSDF as an offspring, and there has been a persistent sense of rivalry
25 Hughes, Japan’s Foreign and Security Policy, 51.
26 Interviews with military and strategic experts, Tokyo, July 2016.
27 “DPJ and JIP Cosponsor Territorial Security Act,” Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), July 8, 2015.
28 The “priority zones” would be defined for up to two years, instead of five years, and the Ministry of
Defense would have to consult the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, which
supervises the JCG, to deploy the JSDF in one of these zones. “DPJ and JIP Cosponsor Territorial
Security Act, Security Legislation Revisions,” DPJ, February 18, 2016 u https://www.dpj.or.jp/
english/news/?num=21012.
29 DPJ, “The Democratic Party’s Priority Policies: Our Promise to the People—Economic
Revitalization Begins with Individual People,” June 20, 2016 u https://www.minshin.or.jp/
download/29468.pdf.
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