By Greg Austin
Stark on China, but a quiet message about Russia?
Japan is to be congratulated on being the most transparent country in the world after the United States in terms of public disclosure of its military policies and planning. For more than 45 years, it has published an annual White Paper, in both Japanese and English. China by comparison, remains amongst the least transparent, even though it has published a White Paper every two years in Chinese and English for around 17 years.
On publication of the English translation of Japan’s 2015 Defense White Paper, The Defense of Japan, released in Japanese in July, those of us not reading Japanese can see further detail of the political messaging around Japan-China relations. The paper is a little more black than it should be. Within seconds of opening it, my eyes lit upon the comparisons between the size of the Chinese navy (870 vessels) and the Japanese navy (137 vessels); and the comparative military personnel strengths (1.6 million for China and 140,000 for Japan). (See Fig. I-0-2-1.) The latter comparison, for the total personnel strength, is “white” (or reliable) while the navy ship numbers comparison is “black” (not reliable). Though the Japanese document is citing the International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS) as the source, the ship numbers figure for China and Japan are comparing apples and oranges.
According to U.S. Naval Intelligence, as cited by the Congressional research Service in 2015, the Chinese navy comprises “more than 300 surface combatants, submarines, amphibious ships, and missile-armed patrol craft” and “more than 400 minor auxiliary ships and service/support craft”. Thus, a reliable source gets us close to the 800 figure counting all possible naval vessels. Yet the number of 137 vessels for the Japanese navy includes only a handful of auxiliary ships. Japan simply has a different naval force structure. If we compare the number of major surface combatants, we see something very different from a 6 to 1 imbalance. The White Paper says China has about 70 major surface combatants, and this compares with 48 in Japan’s destroyer force, according to the White Paper in different tables.
But in modern strategic calculation, the comparison of ship numbers is almost useless. Any assessment of relative maritime power has to take account of land-based air, intelligence, command and control arrangements, anti-ship missile potential, and Allied capability, to name just several areas of combat operations. There is room for considerable confidence in the combat potential of the Japanese navy, captured convincingly in many sources, including a recent title published in The National Interest: “The Japanese Navy’s 5 Most Lethal Weapons of War”.
Read the full story at The Diplomat