Implication of Trump’s National Security Strategy 2025 for Japan
Japan have the Opportunity to be a Normal Sovereign Country
In Asia, the beneficiary – and the new buck-catcher – is obviously Japan.
By openly stating that defending Taiwan is merely “a priority” (not a vital interest) and that it is “ideal” to preserve military overmatch but no longer guaranteed as China is too strong militarily), the United States is effectively telling Tokyo: “If you want the First Island Chain to hold, you will have to do much of the holding yourselves.” Which explains PM Takaichi brash statement that a potential Chinese military attack or blockade against Taiwan could constitute a "survival-threatening situation" for Japan – she is trying to step up to say Japan can hold the First Island Chain on its own.
The document repeatedly insists that “our allies must step up and spend – and more importantly do – much more for collective defence.” Translation: the post-war arrangement in which Japan enjoyed security at American expense while remaining constitutionally and politically castrated is finished.
This creates an historic opportunity for Japan to become a fully sovereign great power for the first time since 1945. The grey zones deliberately left in the 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty and the 1972 Okinawa Reversion Agreement – under which Japan regained only administrative control of Okinawa while the United States retained exclusive use of the bases – can now be renegotiated. If Japan is to become the eastern anchor of any serious containment policy toward China, it will need genuine command authority over the 31 U.S. military installations on its soil, especially the strategic hub at Kadena.
Whether Washington will voluntarily surrender these extraterritorial privileges is doubtful. More likely, Tokyo will have to force the issue – and that, in turn, will require the acquiescence of Beijing and Moscow. Why? Because the legal foundation for the original American seizure of Okinawa rests on the 1943 Cairo Declaration and the 1945 Potsdam Proclamation, both of which promised that all territories “stolen” from China by Japan would be returned to the Republic of China. Russia, as co-signatory to Potsdam and as the successor to the Soviet seat on the Allied Council, retains a theoretical veto over any final settlement of Okinawa’s status. So, Taiwan has to be returned to China?
In other words, Japan’s path to full sovereignty over its own territory now runs through Beijing and Moscow, not Washington. The irony is exquisite: the very powers Japan is supposed to help contain may hold the keys to its liberation from the post-war order.
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