The naval forces of China and Russia have been stepping up their patrols and general
activity around Japan, and are increasing their level of coordination.
In this video, we will be looking at a topic a bit different from the usual focus on technology.
We will be examining the geopolitics of the increasing naval cooperation between China
and Russia in the Sea of Japan and the northern Pacific.
On the 15 June 2022, a large Russian taskforce was sighted 280 km to the southeast of Hokkaido.
Over the course of the next week, they would essentially circumnavigate Japan in a voyage
around the Home Islands.
This force consists of five major units.
They are the Udaloy class anti-submarine destroyer, the Admiral Panteleyev, the three guided missile
corvettes the Sovershennyy, the Gromkiy, and the Aldar Tsydenzhapov, and lastly the missile
range-finding ship, the Marshal Krylov.
This force would sail right around Japan from the eastern side, and enter the Strait of
Tsushima on 21 June, on their way back to Vladivastock.
At the same time, a separate Chinese taskforce circled around Japan from the western side,
crossing the Strait of Tsugaru between Honshu and Hokkaido on 16 June, before sailing south
to complete the circumnavigation.
This battle force composes of a single Type 055 super destroyer the Lhasa, Type 052D destroyer
Chengdu, the Type 903A replenishment supply ship Dongpinghu, and a Type 815 intelligence
gathering ship.
The two taskforces conducted separate operations, but it is highly likely that behind the scenes,
these deployments were well-timed and coordinated by the two Eurasian powers.
The most recent episode of Sino-Russian patrols around Japan follows a long line of similar
activities over the past 5 years or so.
In October 2022, China and Russia conducted a joint naval exercise in the Sea of Japan.
The ships practiced more than 20 joint missions including mine defence, live artillery shooting,
air defence, manoeuvring, communications and anti-submarine missions.
After concluding the exercise, 10 warships from both navies conducted their first joint
maritime patrol by sailing through the Tsugaru Strait and into the Pacific Ocean.
The middle of the Tsugaru Strait, situated between Honshu and Hokkaido, is international
waters, and can be legally transited by the naval force of any countries.
In fact, all activity by Chinese and Russian warships are perfectly legal under international
law – they have not entered Japanese territorial waters.
I’m not talking about activity in the disputed waters, but only referring to deployment around
the home islands.
In this video, I will be examining the geopolitical ramifications of the Sino-Russian naval patrols
near Japan.
In particular, what are the goals of China and Russia?
What message are they trying to send Japan?
And what goals are they trying to achieve?
Firstly, we need to understand that Japan’s position in northeast Asia is actually quite
weak.
On a regional level, Japan is diplomatically isolated.
It has poor relations with all of its immediate neighbours.
Japan has territorial disputes with Russia over the Kurile Islands, and the two countries
are still far away from a diplomatic solution.
Japan also has bad relations with China, because of historical atrocities committed in World
War 2, territorial disputes over the Diaoyu Island, and relations with both Russia and
China are affected to an extent by the presence of US forces in the country.
Japan also has somewhat poor relations with US ally South Korea, again because of maritime
disputes and its infamous colonial history in Korea.
Basically, Japan is highly dependent on the United States, and other external actors,
like India for example, to avoid isolation on a diplomatic and strategic level.
The Japanese approach to foreign policy remains heavily influenced by World War 2, when the
country fought a naval war against an overwhelming coalition of allied nations, with vastly greater
combined resources than Japan, and this war ended very disastrously for Japan.
In many ways, the Sino-Russian joint naval patrol is playing on Japan’s worst fears.
By doing so, China and Russia aim to deter Japan from direct actions against the interests
of both countries.
The Sino-Russian naval patrols aim to send a number of messages, both to Japan and the
US.
The first message is the increasing amount of solidarity between China and Russia, at
least when it comes to geostrategic issues in the Pacific.
Both countries have come under enormous pressure from the US, and also Japan as a de facto
client state of the United States.
The two Eurasian powers will support each other at a diplomatic level, and potentially
on a military level as well.
The fact that the large Sino-Russian naval cooperation took place in the Russian Far
East also avoid antagonising, or trigger anxieties among the European NATO members, which is
something China does not want.
China has very close trading and diplomatic relationships with some European NATO countries,
which she does not want to risk.
The Chinese strategic concern is the Western Pacific, and China has shown no inclination
to support Russia militarily in Eastern Europe.
Secondly, the joint naval patrol is telling the United States that a formal military alliance
between China and Russia can happen, if American pressure on the two goes too far.
There is currently no formal alliance between China and Russia.
China is not a member of the CSTO, the Collective Security Treaty Organisation headed by Russia.
This is partly because of China’s long-held policy to not join military alliance, and
partly because Russia is wary of what would be a high level of Chinese influence in the
CSTO.
But if US pressure continues to push the two countries together, for example in terms of
diplomatic boycotts, sanctions, and information warfare, the Chinese membership of the CSTO
may very well happen.
The third message conveyed by the joint naval patrol is that Japan is vulnerable to a naval
blockade if push comes to shove.
The Chinese and Russian warships have circumnavigated Japan several times over the past five years,
and this has happened using large and powerful naval taskforces.
Chinese and Russian aircrafts have also been sighted flying around Japan.
All of these actions allude to the potential of cutting Japan off from commerce trading
and outside resources, by setting up a large naval perimeter around the island country.
The blockade would be supported by land-based aircraft and long-range anti-ship missiles
from the Asian mainland.
Japan is of course a resource-poor industrialised country.
It relies on imports for its energy, raw materials and food to feed its population.
It has been blockaded during World War 2, and its commercial shipping devastated.
In fact, during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904, Russian warships from Vladivostok have
attacked Japanese commercial shipping basically at will for much of the war, because Japan
did not have enough available warships to chase them away.
So, there is a historical and justified fear of commerce raiding and naval blockade by
the enemy.
So, to be clear, these messages are not friendly signals.
They are basically implied threats.
The ultimate goal is deterrence.
Currently, in my view, there is a small but plausible possibility of a conflict in the
near future between the United States and either China or Russia, or both.
A US-China conflict can happen if the US chooses to intervene in a Taiwan contingency.
A US-Russia war can happen if the elevated level of tension in Eastern Europe erupts
into a full-scale war between Russia and NATO.
We can only hope that, if war does happen, it will not go nuclear and will be somewhat
limited.
Both China and Russia obviously have a strong desire to have Japan stay neutral, or at the
very least not contribute its military forces to the US alliance.
By reminding Japan of its own vulnerability, the two Eurasian powers hope to keep Japan
out of any potential conflict.
Japan also has territorial disputes with both China and Russia.
Japan is disputing the ownership of the Kurile Island chain to the northeast of Hokkaido.
The Kuriles have been occupied by Russia ever since the end of World War 2.
If Japan does choose to forcefully take the islands with its military, it might be quite
difficult for Russia to mount a timely defence, at least in the short-term.
Japan and China are in disagreement over the ownership of the Diaoyu Islands, which is
their Chinese name.
The Japanese refers to them as the Senkaku Islands.
They are uninhabited, but the nearby seabed contains a sizable reserve of energy resources.
China acknowledges that there is a dispute over the islands, but Japan says there is
actually no dispute.
The coast guard vessels of both countries have prowled the waters near the islands to
assert sovereignty.
The naval joint patrols between China and Russia aim to deter the Japanese government
from either using force to settle territorial disputes, or by bring in outside, third party
actors, like the United States.
Lastly, some of the goals to the Sino-Russian naval exercise are non-political.
These objectives are technical in nature, for example around testing new warships and
weapons, and to improve the combat capability and the skills of navy personnel.
A key focus of the joint exercise is to raise the level of inter-operability between the
two navies, so that they can cooperate, if necessary, in a contingency situation.
A major focus is anti-submarine warfare.
The two navies recognise the threat posed by US nuclear submarine forces, and are investing
vast resources to counter American submarines.
Anti-submarine warfare is a natural area of cooperation for the two navies.
In this regard, the Russians have valuable information to potentially share with the
Chinese, including the topography of the underwater terrain around the world’s oceans.
After all, submarines of the Soviet Navy have been charting the underwater geography for
the full duration of the Cold War.
Understanding the underwater geography is very important for the safe operation of submarines,
otherwise you’d be hitting stuff like undersea mountains, for example, and making holes in
the nose of your submarine, just like what happened to the USS Connecticut in October
2021, just as an example.
The other valuable information the Russians will have is the acoustic signature of key
classes of American submarines.
One potential side effect of the Sino-Russian joint naval patrols may be to incentivise
Japan to increase its military spending.
But it is fair to say that this is only one of the many factors leading to a more hawkish
Japan.
Ultimately, there is a strong conflict of interest between Japan and the two other powers,
so Japan will end up raising its military budget no matter what.
But the Japanese economy is very heavily indebted, and it cannot sustain an arms race with two
big continental powers.
In the end, China and Russia have already accepted, or have factored in, an increase
in the Japanese defence budget over time, and a revision of its constitution in the
long-run.