The PLA at Home and Abroad - Strategic Studies Institute - U.S. Army

ness of Japan. Moreover, the PLA knows full well that
Japan’s defense forces remain the best equipped and
best trained of Asia’s armed forces. As a U.S. ally,
Japan comes under the protection of U.S. strategic
nuclear weapons, which nullifies whatever advantage
the PLA’s strategic forces may have had in countering
Japan’s conventional superiority.
Given the apprehension with which each eye the
other, Beijing’s increasing influence in Asia beginning
in the 1990s, together with advances in China’s
military capabilities, were bound to create difficulties
in Sino-Japanese relations. These developments were
paralleled by Tokyo’s closer security arrangements
with the United States in the administrations of both
Presidents Clinton and Bush, which would appear to
expand Japan’s strategic role in Asia. Japan’s support
for the United States by providing MSDF refueling
capabilities in the Indian Ocean for U.S. Naval forces
conducting Afghanistan operations and the 2004 deployment
of Ground Self-Defense Forces (GSDF) to
Iraq, even in a noncombat role, suggested a much
more active Japanese security role outside its home
waters.
The dilemma faced by Beijing, however, is that increased
tensions with Japan do not serve China’s interests.
Beijing’s national security strategy is grounded
on the strategic objective of maintaining an international
environment conducive to sustaining China’s
national development. In the Asia-Pacific region this
is essentially a “good neighbor” policy. Tensions and
competition with Japan do not serve this policy well.
As Robert Sutter’s assessment has observed, the deterioration
in Sino-Japanese relations over the years
2001-06 can in part be attributed to the status given Japan
in China’s defense policies outlined in the Defense
White Papers of 2004 and 2006. 68
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