japan updates wave 2 orsneg1nc relations linkDue to other security factors, closer US-China relations causes Japanese proliferation itd happen in months, none of your defense applies

Forest and Rayne 16 [Kaya Forest and Sierra Rayne; Sierra Rayne holds a Ph.D. in Chemistry and writes regularly on environment, energy, and national security topics; March 20, 2016; Japan's security concerns and the need for a revitalized U.S. nuclear deterrent; http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/03/japans_security_concerns_and_the_need_for_a_revitalized_us_nuclear_deterrent.html//TPB]

Historically the poster child for non-proliferation and disarmament, Japan has recently begun to more openly contemplate development of nuclear weapons. While the populace may overwhelmingly oppose nuclear armament, many government and policy leaders are advocating a more autonomous foreign policy in response to a changing security environment. This change in policy to a more assertive and less defensive stance could be seen when, in 2015, Japan's legislature approved a bill that removed limits on combat imposed by its constitution, thus opening the door to military action in defense of its allies in conflicts abroad. Until now, Japanese participation in overseas exploits has been largely restricted to humanitarian activities. Japan has long advocated against nuclear proliferation and has itself pledged not to produce or acquire nuclear weapons in line with its three non-nuclear principles: not to allow the manufacture, possession, or importation of nuclear weapons. As a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), it placed itself under the treaty obligation as a non-nuclear weapons state. A 2009 Congressional Research Service paper reported that while this may be the default position of Japan, a changing security environment in the past has often resulted in a strategic reassessment: Despite multiple reiterations of Japan's non-nuclear status, this orthodoxy has been challenged on several occasions, usually when Japan has felt strategic vulnerability. Probably the most prominent episode occurred in the mid-1960s: China tested a nuclear device for the first time in 1964, and the United States was engaged in the Vietnam War. Prime Minister Eisaku Sato secretly commissioned several academics to produce a study exploring the costs and benefits of Japan's possible nuclearization, the so-called "1968/70 Internal Report." Another secret investigation into Japan's nuclear option was done by the Japan Defense Agency in 1995 as Japan assessed its standing in the new post-Cold War environment after the 1994 North Korean nuclear crisis in 1994 and as the international community was considering the indefinite extension of the NPT. The implication is that threats to its security today will lead Japan to reconsider its nuclear strategy in the future. Japan perceives China as one of its greatest security threats. As China continues to modernize and expand its military, the threat becomes more acute. North Korea's ongoing tests of nuclear devices and delivery vehicles have also altered the strategic dynamics in the East Asia region. Exchanging basing rights for security and protection under the U.S. deterrence umbrella after WWII, any significant change in the United States' commitment to maintaining its nuclear deterrence structure would have profound implications for Japan's defense policy. A strengthened U.S.-China relationship and the ongoing buildup of nuclear weapons capacity by North Korea may call into question whether the U.S. will continue to exert dominance in East Asia to the extent needed to adequately defend Japanese interests. Japan began researching nuclear weapons development during WWII. Today, with one of the world's most advanced civilian nuclear power programs and a highly technologically sophisticated society, many believe that Japan could develop nuclear weapons in a matter of months should it choose to do so. Despite being a non-nuclear state, Japan has long been committed to developing and maintaining a full-spectrum fuel cycle capability. The Rokkasho reprocessing facility is due to come online in 2016 and will be capable of producing eight tons of weapons-grade plutonium annually. Japan already has 48 tons of plutonium stockpiled and a defense and space industry capable of producing advanced delivery systems. As China gets ever more expansive in its territorial ambitions, and North Korea continues to flex its military muscle, other Asian countries are put on the defensive over issues that may be unlikely to trigger the extended deterrence promised by the U.S. If the U.S.-Japan alliance weakens, for example as a result of closer U.S.-China ties or a softening of the negotiating position on North Korea's denuclearization, it may strengthen the argument of advocates pushing for Japan to develop its own independent deterrence.

2nc economic engagement linkJapan is shifting to a hard hedge policy this increases the necessity of strong US-Japan ties, deepening economic cooperation between the US and China makes Japan doubt the US causing proliferation

Tsuneo 15 [Watanabe, Tsuneo; New School for Social Research, where he received his MA in political science, visiting research scholar and Senior Fellow at CSIS, senior fellow at the Mitsui Global Strategic Studies Institute in Tokyo, is currently the director of research and a Senior Fellow at the Tokyo Foundation, while concurrently an adjunct fellow, Center for Strategic and International Studies, and senior fellow, Okinawa Peace Assistance Center; April 06, 2015; Japans Security Strategy toward the Rise of China From a Friendship Paradigm to a Mix of Engagement and Hedging; http://www.tokyofoundation.org/en/articles/2015/security-strategy-toward-rise-of-china//TPB]

Mochizuki saw the competitive engagement with hard hedge school as being more skeptical of the possibility that China will adhere to a cooperative strategy as its power capabilities increase. This school is also worried that the balance in conventional weapons could tip in favor of the Chinese side, even in comparison to the combined air and naval capabilities of Japan and the United States. Mochizuki chose competitive engagement rather than cooperative, since the school sees Chinese leaders using the history card to weaken Japans to resolve to stand up to China and to reduce its regional influence.[33] Mochizuki distinguished balancing and containment from competitive engagement with hard hedge, saying that the former camp believes that China will eventually embrace hegemonic ambitions based on cultural or historical reasons and could, in the future, face internal turmoil due to socio-political contradictions. Some members of the school raised doubts about the credibility of US extended deterrence in the context of China and proposed that Japan pursue its own nuclear option.[34] Mochizuki pointed out that the strategic accommodation school differs from cooperative engagement with soft hedge as it believes that tightening the alliance with the United States could jeopardize cooperative ties with China.[35] China as a Security Threat The Japanese perception of China has deteriorated through the chain of events that created mutual distrust in the 2000s and early 2010s. Although Japan occasionally experienced diplomatic skirmishes with China in the 1980s and 1990s, the relationship had the ability to get over them. Japans experience with China in the 2000s, however, has prompted many to regard Chinese as a potential threat to Japans survival. Public opinion polls conducted by Japans Cabinet Office shows the changes in Japanese perceptions of its giant neighbor. In 2000, the biggest threats to Japans national security were regarded as being the Korean Peninsula (56.7%), disarmament and weapon of mass destruction (35.2%), and US-Russia relations (17.9%). China was not even among the choices offered except in the context of US-China relations (13.1%) and China-Russia relations (11.7%). The Japanese did not assume that China itself was a security threat to Japan.[36] In the same poll conducted in 2012, many Japanese respondents said they were concerned about the modernization of Chinas military and its maritime activities (46.0%)the second most popular response after the Korean Peninsula (64.9%).[37] Another poll conducted by a Japanese NGO in 2013 showed the Japanese feel most threatened militarily by North Korea (73.4%), followed by China (61.8%). Respondents choosing China also gave their reasons why. The two top choices were concern with Chinas intrusions into Japans territorial waters, and concern with Japan and Chinas conflict over territories, which were more 60%. The same poll asked the same questions to Chinese citizens, who saw the United State as being the biggest threat (71.6%) and Japan as the second biggest (53.9%).[38] The poll results suggest a growing perception of China as a threat during the 2000s. The first turning point was Prime Minister Koizumis Yasukuni visit in 2005. According to the same poll in 2006, 42.8% of Japanese respondents said they see China as a military threat.[39] Yet, the Japanese were optimistic that mutual economic interdependence would prevent military conflict. The second turning point was 2010 after the fishing boat collision near the Senkaku Islands. The Japanese realized that China would resort to economic measures to address diplomatic issues even if they may damage their own economic interests. It may not be a coincidence that it was in 2010 that Chinas gross domestic product surpassed Japans to become the second largest in the world. The Chinese economy was now big enough to allow for a few dents in economic relations with Japan. This is a worrisome trend for the Japanese, as it suggests there could be more retaliatory actions on the economic and business front, as evidenced by Chinas harsh reaction to the Japanese governments purchase of the Senkaku Islands in September 2012. Historical Limitation and the Japan-US-China Triangle As noted above, China was not seen as a serious security threat until very recently. China, though, has seen the Japan-US military alliance as being against their security interests. Historically and structurally, the United States has been an integral part of Japans security strategy toward China. In 1930s and 1940s, Imperial Japan invaded China with colonial ambitions. It was the United States, which provided military support to Chiang Kai-shek, the leader of the Republic of China on the mainland against Japans invasion. In 1941, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor to start a war against the United States. After its defeat in World War II, Japans rearmament was driven by the US strategy for the emerging Cold War. Japan recovered its independence and began limited rearmament under a new Constitution that included a clause vowing to renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes. This idealistic clause was augmented with the US military presence in Japan under a mutual security treaty to guarantee Japans security. For China, the Japan-US security arrangements were occasionally seen as a threat to its own security. China was more antagonistic toward the United States in the early stages of the Cold War and during Korean War than at any other time. China rewrote its former positive view of the United States in more antagonistic terms during this era. At the same time, the US military presence in Japan and the constitutional restraints on an independent defense policy were designed to prevent the reemergence of Japanese militarism. This facilitated Chinas decision to normalize ties with the US and Japan after 1972 in the face of their urgent need to counter the Soviet Union. At the same time, Japans economy grew more dependent on the markets of neighboring Asian countries, especially in Southeast Asia. This was part of a US Cold War strategy to turn Japan into a showcase of the success liberal democracies can enjoy and to encourage it to become a reliable security partner, guaranteeing a US military presence in East Asia against the Soviet Union and the PRC. After the US strategic shift to seek cooperation with China against the Soviet Union, China also became a very important economic partner for Japan. Strategic cooperation between China and the Japan-US alliance successfully pushed the Soviet Union toward collapse. The side effect of the Cold War victory was that China enjoyed military and economic assistance from the United States and Japan and was able to create the foundations for its current economic success as the worlds second-largest economy. As the current US strategy toward China no longer ignores the economic interdependence with China, Japan is also heavily dependent on the Chinese economy. Another side effect of the Cold War is that Japan failed to make a moral reconciliation with Chinese and South Korean nationals regarding its past aggressions and colonial policy, although state-to-state agreements were reached. Japans normalization with China in 1972 was achieved thanks to the strong leadership and grand strategic ideas of Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai. There was no clear reconciliation, though, at the social level. China continued to conduct anti-Japanese education, since winning independence from Imperial Japan is seen as an essential source of legitimacy for the ruling Communist Party of China. In addition, China has effectively utilized the history card to restrain Japans aspirations to become a normal country by amending Article 9 of the Constitution. It was very difficult for Japanese leaders to pursue normal nation rearmament in the light of the strong anti-war sentiments of those who experienced World War II. In the Diet, the Japan Socialist Party, which was sympathetic to Chinas Marxist ideology, roused feelings of war guilt to block Japans return to normalcy with a constitutional amendment, which requires the approval of a two-thirds majority in the Diet. Thus, Japans strategic options have been shaped by historical and geopolitical limitations: a security alliance with the United States, constitutional restraints on defense and security policy, diplomatic restrictions on rearmament via Chinas (and South Koreas) history card, and, more recently, the heavy reliance on the Chinese economy. Current Trend toward Hard Hedge The current trend in Japan strategic policy seems to be a shift toward competitive engagement with hard hedge and away from cooperative engagement with soft hedge, as coined by Mike Mochizuki. Richard Bush categorizes the Tokyo Foundations policy proposal Japans Security Strategy toward China in 2011 as an example of competitive engagement with hard hedge school. Bush sates that the proposal focuses on strengthening Japans own military capabilities, changing the Constitution to allow more flexibility on security policy, broadening the scope of the alliance for regional and global challenge, and expanding security ties with other likeminded nations.[40] He also added that this approach is similar to the series of policy recommendations on the Japan-US alliance contained in the Armitage-Nye Report.[41] In Japans two more recent administrations, led by Prime Ministers Noda and Abe, members of the hard hedge school have had an influential policymaking role. In fact, there is considerable continuity in the defense and security policies of the DPJs Noda administration and the LDPs Abe administration. For example, security experts like Satoshi Morimoto and Shigeru Ishiba, whom Mochizuki categorizes as belonging to the hard hedge school, have played important roles in Japanese policymaking.[42] Morimoto served as minister of defense as a nonpolitical appointee in the Noda administration, and Shigeru Ishiba is the secretary general of the LDP. Morimotos pick was regarded as an effort to reinforce the alliance with the United States, which was damaged by Prime Minister Hatoyamas unprofessional management of the Okinawa base issue. Although Ishiba was defeated by Abe in the September 2012 LDP presidential election, he received more votes than Abe from non-Diet party members.(Abe won the election with higher support from Diet members.) Ishiba is known as a defense policy expert, and his support could be seen as a reflection of peoples anxiety and antipathy toward Chinas harsh reaction to the Japanese government purchase of the Senkaku Islands in September 2012. This apparent trend does not signal the death of soft hedge school, though. The small but influential New Komeito Party, which played a critical role in maintaining relations with China and continues to cooperate closely with the LDP during elections, is an influential coalition partner advocating a soft hedge approach. For example, the liveliest debate on the shift in security policy toward hard hedgesuch as a reinterpretation of Article 9are now held between the LDP and Komeito, rather than within the government or with the opposition parties. The general trend, despite the influence of the soft-hedge Komeito, though, is that Japan future trajectory will be toward more normal country status, both in its relationship with the United States and China. Chinas assertiveness in the South and Easter China Sea pushes Japan toward a closer alliance with the United States and encourages an increase in defense capacity. In the past, Chinas history card was effective in restraining Japans security policy. But in the face of Chinas military modernization and burgeoning economyand as the number of elder Japanese who experienced wartime aggressions declinesJapans self-restraint is fading away. Japans Dilemma in the Japan-US-China Triangle In a sense, thought, this is quite natural, as nearly 70 years have already passed since the end of World War II. The trouble is, however, historical reconciliation has not been made in the minds of the people in the PRC, who are still educated that Japan is a hostile nation. As matter of the fact, a majority of people polled in China said that Japans current government is a military regime. This contrasts sharply with a BBC worldwide poll conducted between 2011 and 2012 that scores Japan as the nation that has had the most positive influence in the world.[43] As Japan seeks an exit strategy from the current impasse and mutual distrust with China, it may find itself in a difficult dilemma in the trilateral relationship with the United States and China. To secure its territorial integrity, Japan needs to increase its own military capabilities and force closer alliance ties with the United States, even when such actions could raise Chinas anxiety or mistrust of Japan. There is no getting around the fact that Japan needs to increase its business ties with China to secure its own economic growth. However, the Japanese are no longer so naive as to expect economic interdependence to prevent potential conflicts in the light of the Senkaku experience in 2010. The Japanese now realize that increasing economic interdependence could actually give China bigger political tools with which to limit Japans policy choices. Japanese strategy experts occasionally voice the concern about whether the United States would fully support Japans security interests in the face of deepening US-China economic ties. The Japan-US-China triangle may have entered a new difficult phase as China rises into a more influential military and economic power. It behooves Japanese policymakers to address the complex nature of this triangle, in which military rivalry and cooperation, economic competition and interdependence, and historical differences and friendship are juxtaposed in the context of a dynamic power shift in the Asia-Pacific.

Increased US-China economic investment ignites fears of Japan Passing and doubts of US extended deterrence

Burns 10 (Analyst of US-China foreign policy at CNA. The United States and Japan in Global Context: 2010 John Hopkins University 2010, page 39 //LP)

Both the United States and Japan acknowledge that Chinas rise, in terms of both economic and military strength, is inevitable. Managing this rise is a long-term challenge for the Alliance. Although the Japanese government will not explicitly state that China is a threat, Japanese security experts argue that Japan should hedge against Chinas military rise nonetheless. The key question is how China will use its newfound power in the future, as its military spending increases in pace with, or even faster than, increases in its GDP. As an example of this threat, some experts interviewed in Tokyo believe that a Chinese naval buildup, intended to establish a true blue-water navy, means that China at the very least wants to share hegemony in Asia with the United States. Chinas nuclear modernization program poses a particular worry for the Japanese defense establishment, and a Defense Agency white paper from 2003 makes it clear that the objectives of this program should be watched very carefully: China has been modernizing its nuclear and missile forces as well as its naval and air forces. Careful deliberation should go into determining whether the objective of this modernization exceeds the scope necessary for the defense of China, and future developments in this area merit special attention. Substantial increases and improvements in Chinas nuclear deterrent can especially serve to create controversy within the U.S.-Japan Alliance. Although Chinas nuclear arsenal will grow to match or exceed Americas only in the very long term, some short term effects may also be seen. One expert contacted for this paper emphasized the role that a nuclear deterrent plays in the establishment of national prestige. Even if China never perceives a military threat from the Alliance, it would still seek to improve its deterrent because nuclear capabilities are characteristic of a true world power. Chinas military buildup will only accentuate Japans relative decline and highlight its total dependence on U.S. extended deterrence. Furthermore, if Sino-Japanese relations declined, America would face the threat of being pulled into a conflict between the two Asian nations, even as the Sino-U.S. relationship grows in importance. Chinas economic growth poses further challenges for the Alliance, even in the short term. Trade between China and the two allies is dramatically growing in importance, and will increasingly dwarf the economic relationship between the allies themselves. This mutual dependence on a third party will certainly complicate decision making in the Alliance. For example, the fear of Japan passing, or in other words the threat that America will increasingly ignore its relationship with Japan in favor of China, may affect Japanese confidence in the credibility of U.S. extended deterrence.

2nc relations linkChanges in US-China engagement patterns make Japan fear getting left outside

Burns 10 (Analyst of US-China foreign policy at CNA. The United States and Japan in Global Context: 2010 John Hopkins University 2010, page 39 //LP)

Changes in U.S. nuclear strategy would harm perceptions of and confidence in the U.S. commitment to extended deterrence, especially in East Asia, while making little progress towards the goal of nuclear zero. Extended nuclear deterrence is the most important part of an American defense policy that constrains war around the world. Especially because the United States must face increasing fiscal and political constraints to maintaining bases abroad, and a decreasing willingness of its partners to shoulder the burdens of these bases, the nuclear component of its policies will only increase in value. The current dispute over U.S. bases in Okinawa between the Obama administration and the new DPJ government highlights this fact. Moreover, the value of nuclear deterrence is intimately tied to other nations perceptions of its solidity and the willingness of the United States to use its weapons in a crisis. These perceptions prevent potential opponents from threatening U.S. or allied assets, and therefore prevent the use of nuclear weapons in the first place. This series of cause and effect could be disrupted by policy decisions that do not fully take into account the consequences of weakening these patterns. Any serious efforts to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in U.S. strategy could have harmful and perhaps counterintuitive consequences, especially for Japanese perceptions of the security environment in Asia. It could encourage a revisionist China as it seeks to match U.S. capabilities in the region. The Kim Jong-Il regime in North Korea is unlikely to accept American leadership and disarm according to its example. Finally, The United States and Japan in Global Context: 2010 46 Japan is the linchpin in the security architecture of East Asia. If the Japanese lost confidence in the American nuclear umbrella, while already afraid of being overshadowed by the U.S.-China relationship, it would affect their support of U.S. bases in their territory and plans for the future of their own military. In an extreme case, Japan could even seek to build its own deterrent, and destabilize the entire region. Historically, Japanese security experts have worried about reductions in the U.S. nuclear stockpile. Any potential changes to the stability of extended deterrence may pose trouble for the Alliance.

2nc fear of abandonment linkJapan will rearm in response to perceived US abandonment.

Mehmetcik 15 Hakan Mehmetcik, ADV author for the International Association for Political Science Students, Research Assistant at the Department of International Relations, Marmara University, 2015 ("Hedging in East Asia: Japans Double-edged Sword," International Association for Political Science Students, May 24th, Available Online at http://www.iapss.org/2015/05/24/hedging-in-east-asia-japans-double-edge-sword/, Accessed 7-25-2016)

A result of this new found policy change in Japan, with an increasing tension in Sino-Japanese relations, is China accusing Japan of remilitarizing. In a recent visit to Washington, the role of Japans military, if we can call it a military since it is in the form of Self Defense Form, has been uplifted and the US-Japan alliance revitalized further by revising the Guidelines for Japan-U.S. Defense Cooperation. Japanese benefits from alliance with the US are decreasing due to regionalization of the security in the East Asia as well as rising Asia as opposed to declining America. Japan still sees the alliance contributing to peace and stability in the region. Yet, the US-Japan alliance is not enough to assure Japan against Japans strategic uncertainties in the post Cold War era. In the longer term, Japan does not fear that China would attack Japan sooner or later. Its concerns are generally about Chinas assertive acts regarding East China sea and territorial disputes over Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands. There is even a possibility of Sino-Japanese conflict over these territorial disputes. For instance, one of the expert on Japan, Shelia A. Smith argues that: Until recently, this territorial dispute was little more than a minor irritant in Sino-Japanese relations. However, against the backdrop of Chinas growing military power, the island dispute has increased concerns in Tokyo about Beijings regional intentions and the adequacy of Japans security, while stoking nationalistic politics in both capitals. Political miscalculation in Tokyo or Beijing, or unintended military interactions in and around the disputed islands, could escalate further, leading to an armed clash between Asias two largest powers. The United States, as a treaty ally of Japan but with vital strategic interests in fostering peaceful relations with China, has a major stake in averting such a clash and resolving the dispute, if possible. Thus, Japans another fear is that the US would abandon Japan in case of a fight over those inhabitant islands in the East China Sea. In accordance with this double-edged fear, Japan hedges against China by improving its ties with the US. Yet at the same time, Japan hedges against a possible US abandonment by increasing its defense capabilities. Therefore, Japans act is not pure and simple balancing acts against China, or bandwagoning the US Asia-Pacific strategy; on the contrary, it is more about hedging towards uncertainties stemming from China and the USs future in the region. All in all, Japans hedging strategy is threefold: economic, military and diplomacy. Economically, even though there are some anti-Japanese sentiment in Beijing, economic ties between two countries increased over the last decades to a point where a major break up would damage severely both countries. In diplomatic front, despite increased rhetoric there is a hot and cold diplomatic stability over the relations including the dispute of Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands. In military terms, Japans increasing its defense spending as well as making strategic moves towards eliminating domestic and international burdens on its remilitarization. However, I have already pointed out, these efforts are not just related to Chinas rise, but its more related to the US retrenchment. Japan builds its arm due to the diminishing credibility of the US extended deterrence too.

2nc uq/brinkUS-Japan alliances on the brink now postdates all aff evidence

Hughes 4/28 (Christopher W. Hughes is Professor of International Politics and Japanese Studies at the Department of Politics and International Studies, the University of Warwick. Japans Resentful Realism and Balancing

Chinas Rise, The Chinese Journal of International Politics 9.2 (Summer 2016), 109150, accessed 29 July 2016, http://cjip.oxfordjournals.org/content/9/2/109.full.pdf //SY)

Japanese concerns over the PLAs potential to surpass the JSDFs internal balancing capabilities are exacerbated further by the increasing Chinese challenge to the US role as an external balancer. Japanese policymakers have for the first time in the post-war period begun to doubt seriously whether the USA possesses the necessary military power to counter the Chinese probing and access-denial strategies that have most direct impact on Japans security in regard to territorial disputes and SLOC security. There are fears that Chinas A2/AD strategy may impose costs on the US military that might prevent its intervention in regional contingencies similar to that carried out in the 19951996 Taiwan Straits crisis. Chinas ability to strike USAF Kadena in Okinawa, or USAF, USN, and USMC assets at Iwakuni, Misawa, and Yokota in Honshu, is perceived in the event of a crisis to threaten in- capacitation of US forces.97 Even more worrying for Japan long term is Chinas development of anti-ship ballistic missiles (ASBM) capable of striking US aircraft carriers operating out of Japan and in the Asia-Pacific, which might severely undermine the US force projection and deterrent posture in the region.98 Japanese policymakers hold out considerable hopes that the USs Air-Sea Battle Concept will overcome Chinas A2/AD, but are concerned about whether or not the USA is deploying the full range of naval and air capabilities necessary to effect what is not yet a clear-cut strategy, and whether or not it has sufficient budgetary capacity to truly pivot its military might to the Asia-Pacific to counter Chinas rising power.99 Japanese anxieties about the sufficiency of the USs extant military capabilities to control the global commons and enable intervention in the East Asia theatre have in turn raised questions about the impact this might have on broader US political and military security guarantees to Japan.100 Japanese policymakers now fear the heightened prospect of US abandonment in a situation of strategic accommodation between the USA and China, and if the USA deems Japans security interests as falling short of the necessary threshold for convergence with its own core interests to warrant mobilization of its forces in Japans defence. This risk is seen as especially likely if, in light of Chinese A2/AD strategies, the cost of deployment of US forces is constantly rising. The lingering suspicion of some Japanese analysts is that the defence of the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, even though included under the scope of Article 5 of the bilateral security treaty due to being under Japanese administration, and having drawn renewed reassurances from the USA in this regard since 2010, could be just such an issue wherein the USA would hesitate to intervene on Japans behalf for fear of putting at risk the entire SinoUS relationship; and especially if China were to seize the islands, thus raising the prospect of the USA and Japans attempting to recover the territories from China in a full-scale conflict rather than initial deterrence of aggression.101

2nc zero sumSino-American cooperation triggers the link and relations are zero-sum

White 11 (Hugh White is a professor of strategic studies at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University. THE FOUNDERING MIRACLE: Reflections on Japan, The Monthly, May 2011, https://www.themonthly.com.au/foundering-miracle-two-reflections-japan-hugh-white-3284 //SY)

Japan deeply fears that, as China grows stronger, it will squeeze Japan economically, politically and strategically, reducing Japan to a kind of Chinese dependency. The historical sources of this anxiety are understandable enough, from both sides. The question is whether Japan can confidently rely on the US to protect it against this possibility. Can it be sure that Washington will always put Tokyos interests ahead of Beijings if and when they clash? Unfortunately not. Chinas growing wealth and strength makes it both a more important partner and a more dangerous adversary for Washington. Inevitably this means Washington will try hard to avoid any clash where its own interests are not directly engaged. It will be more and more inclined to ask Tokyo to sacrifice its interests for the sake of Washingtons relationship with Beijing. Japan also fears the opposite risk: relatively minor disputes between Tokyo and Beijing could too easily escalate into major conflict between the US and China, which would be disastrous for Japan. Either way, Japans strategic dependency on the US becomes more of a liability than an asset as China grows. If the US and China get on well, its interests will be sidelined and, if they get on badly, it will be drawn into an increasingly intense strategic competition between its two most important international partners. So, Japan needs a whole new strategic model too raising immense political issues both at home and abroad. Yet even after two dismal and demoralizing decades, Japan has immense strengths. It is still the worlds third-largest economy and, on present trends, will not be overtaken for some time (ultimately, India may take its place). It still has remarkable technological depth and management skills. Productivity in many sectors of the economy outside manufacturing is low and could be increased sharply. Japan has a big population at 128 million and its declining workforce could be partly offset by expanding the low participation of married women. It could even contemplate immigration. Japan also has formidable strategic potential. It will never again send huge armies to seize an empire on the Asian mainland but it has the economic, technological and demographic base to build and sustain truly forbidding air and naval forces for many years to come. Japan can be a very big player in the maritime strategic competition that is already breaking out in the western Pacific. And it could build and deploy nuclear weapons within just a couple of years.

US-China relations directly affect relations with Japan.

Harner 15 Stephen Harner, former U.S. Foreign Service Officer who served in Beijing and Tokyo, graduate of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, 2015 ("How To 'Meet China Halfway' In Managing Japan-China and U.S.-Japan Security Relations," Forbes, June 29th, Available Online at http://www.forbes.com/sites/stephenharner/2015/06/29/how-to-meet-china-halfway-in-managing-japan-china-and-u-s-japan-security-relations/#2973488d3517, Accessed 7-27-2016)

Of course, Japan-China political and military tensions, and specifically the Senkaku/Diaoyu island territorial dispute, have been much in the backgroundif not in the forefrontproviding explicit justification for Abes plans. They are also what, given the U.S.-Japan alliance, could pull the United States into armed conflict with China. It is evident that U.S.-Japan relations, particularly military-security relations, are inseparable from U.S.-China relations. In turn, Japan-China relations, even short of conflict, powerfully effect U.S. relations with each. Indeed, it is impossible to conceive of U.S. national security policy toward Asia that does not place Japan-China relationsand the dangers attendant theretoin a vital center, fulcrum-like position. This perspective brings us to the chapter in U.S. Naval War College assistant professor Lyle J. Goldsteins book, Meeting China HalfwayHow to Defuse the Emerging U.S.-China Rivalry entitled Keystone. What Goldstein has to say here is profoundly important. A few quotes: the divisive issues between Tokyo and Beijing are to a large extent imagined. For Japan, the major concerns are not generally related to current Chinese policies. Rather, Tokyo frets about an immensely powerful, militaristic, and nationalistic China that could hypothetically emerge at some point to threaten Japans sea lanes and other vital interests. Beijing is also shadow-boxing.

2nc spilloverPrior security commitments dont matter and Japan prolif spills over to South Korea

Sokolski 5/8 (Henry Sokolski is the executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center and the author of Underestimated: Our Not So Peaceful Nuclear Future (Strategic Studies Institute, 2016). Japan and South Korea May Soon Go Nuclear, The Wall Street Journal, 8 May 2016, http://www.wsj.com/articles/japan-and-south-korea-may-soon-go-nuclear-1462738914 //SY)

On Friday North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un praised his countrys recent hydrogen bomb test and satellite launch as unprecedented achievements that will bring the final victory of the revolution. Such rhetoric is nothing new, but North Koreas nuclear-weapons program and a growing sense that security arrangements with the U.S. arent sufficient has eroded the Japanese taboo against nuclear weapons. On April 1, Prime Minister Shinzo Abes cabinet announced that Japans constitution did not ban his country from having or using nuclear arms. Meanwhile, South Koreas ruling-party leaders have urged President Park Geun-hye to stockpile peaceful plutonium as a military hedge against its neighbors. A Feb. 19 article in Seouls leading conservative daily, the Chosun Ilbo, went so far as to detail how South Korea could use its existing civilian nuclear facilities to build a bomb in 18 months. Japan and South Korea are party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and Tokyos anti-nuclear-weapons stance dates to 1945 and the nuclear devastation the U.S. wreaked on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But that wont necessarily stop either country from joining the nuclear clubor at least positioning themselves to do so quicklyif they feel the U.S. nuclear umbrella is folding. Japan already has stockpiled 11 tons of plutonium, separated from fuel used in its nuclear-power reactors. A bomb requires roughly five kilograms (or 1/200th of a ton). The old shibboleth, popular with the nuclear industry, that such reactor-grade plutonium is unsuitable for weapons, is essentially irrelevant for a technologically advanced country. Japan also has builtbut not operateda large reprocessing plant of French design that can separate about eight tons of plutonium a year. The shutdown of Japans power reactors following the 2011 Fukushima disaster means there are no reactors online that can use this plutonium. But Japan says it will proceed with reprocessing anyway, putatively to keep open the distant possibility of fueling a new generation of so-called fast-breeder reactors. Japans nuclear cooperation agreement with Washington allows it to do this with U.S.-origin fuel. South Koreas agreement prohibits this without U.S. approval, something Seoul chafes at. It sees itself the equal of Japan. Should Japan operate Rokkasho, as it plans to do late in 2018, it will be impossible politically to restrain South Korea from following suit.

XT public opinionThe publics support of pacifism declining in the squo lack of peace education and new generation detached from horrors of nuclear war

Yuan 2008 (Cai, graduate degree in International Affairs of Adelaide University. The Rise and Decline of Japanese Pacifism New Voices Volume 2 The Japan Foundation 2008 //LP)

If the birthplace of pacifism was among the ruins of an utterly defeated Japan, its ultimate deathbed must be the glittering new Japan built atop the ruins. Japans meteoric rise as one of the largest economies in the world has been described as an economic miracle; and the Japanese people today enjoy one of the highest living standards in the world. Any first time foreign visitors will be awestricken by the modernity of Japan, its glittering neon lights, high-rise skyscrapers, and the oversized electronic advertising boards. There is very little in Japan to remind foreign visitors and young Japanese of the devastation of the war at the end of 1945. Even visitors to Hiroshima and Nagasaki will be struck by their apparent normalcy. Apart from the A-bomb dome and the peace park, there is very little to differentiate these two cities from other Japanese metropolitan centres. The corporate buildings, neon lights and department stores dominate downtown Hiroshima. The imposing structure of the Hiroshima baseball stadium, home to the celebrated Hiroshima Carp, replete with amplifiers and lights offer little reminder of the hellish landscape it is built on. So complete was the reconstruction in Hiroshima, the hibakusha are committed to preserve the physical remnants of the 1945 nuclear holocaust.12 They fear that with the disappearance of the physical scars of the war, the younger generation will forget the disaster that befell the city 60 years ago. In a Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK) survey in 2002, it revealed that most of the Japanese youth were ignorant of Japans modern history and had little knowledge of the post-war conditions.13 The generational change in Japan is undermining the fragile foundation of pacifism in Japan. It is a universal phenomenon that those who had lived through war and its immediate aftermath developed a very different worldview and values from those who had only known prosperity and Japan is no exception. Given the particularly horrible conditions in wartime Japan and its aftermath, the generational perception on war and peace is even more pronounced. The older generation, those who are 50 years old or above generally regard issues on war and rearmament with great suspicion, if not outright resentment, and on the other hand the younger generations 10 Naeve, Friends of Hibakusha, p. 121. 11 60 Years since the Atomic Bombing: Time to Develop Actions and Cooperation for a Nuclear Weapon-Free, Peaceful, Just World, 2005, the 2005 World Conference against A & H Bombs, Hiroshima, Japan. 12 Gerson, With Hiroshima Eyes: Atomic War, Nuclear Extortion and Moral Imagination, p. 26. 13 Generational Change in Japan: Its implication for U.S-Japan Relations 2002, p. 6. Yuan Cai 185 born in the peace and prosperity of post-war Japan tend to be much less sensitized to this issue. The most enduring feature of Japans wartime suffering and the key rallying point of post-war pacifism and the peace movement are also showing signs of weakening vigour. The peace memorial services at Hiroshima and Nagasaki that were once regarded as sacred touchstone events on the Japanese national calendar are losing their appeal to the Japanese public. The Peace Commemoration event on August 6 at Hiroshima in 2005 drew a crowd of 7000, but it paled in comparison to previous events at this same Mecca of Peace that exerted a pull on tens of thousands of peace pilgrims. Professor Ryuso Tanaka of the Hiroshima Peace Institute noticed that the number of Japanese school children who visit the Peace Park on school excursions had declined sharply in recent years, and the oblivion to the Hiroshima memory is becoming a nationwide phenomenon. Sadakos famous paper cranes, symbols of peace the world over have been set on fire repeatedly by students on their excursion trips. Not even a specially constructed glass screen could save it from vandalism.14 A long time resident of Nagasaki also recalled in an interview that the annual commemoration event at Nagasaki no longer makes headlines in the local news over the past few years, even the local residents appear to be more preoccupied with such pressing problems as employment and schooling over peace and war.15 We are faced with the challenge of conveying this experience to the next generations, said Noriyuki Masuda, associate director of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Association. At some point we realized that what we had was a crisis involving young peoples consciousness. We have been facing a change in attitudes and a decline of interest in Japan as a nation.16 This declining interest in Hiroshima and its compelling story of death and survival is evident to Mrs Setsuko Iwamoto, who is both a hibakusha and a lecturer for 18 years to visiting students at the Peace Museum. She said, with each passing year, the stares of the students grow blanker and blanker, and their questions about atomic bombing grow more stilted, appearing more rehearsed than heartfelt.17 The real challenge for Hiroshima and Nagasaki is how to keep alive the memory of the atomic bomb victims, with the gradual withering of the surviving hibakusha. The people of Japan in general and residents of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in particular need to find a way to perpetuate the peace message without the living voice of hibakusha. 14 Tanaka, The Hibakusha Voice and the Future of the Anti-Nuclear Movement. 15 An interview with a Japanese student from Nagasaki. 16 French, Teaching Youth To Start Worrying About The Bomb. 17 Ibid. New Voices Volume 2 186 Peace Education and Pacifism Having explored the significance of the popular desire that never again should they relive the horrors of war as the driving force behind pacifism in Japan, it is also imperative to examine another pillar of the development of pacifism in post-war Japan, namely the importance of peace education in fostering a pacifist spirit among the younger generation. The post-war democratization of Japans once authoritarian educational system had provided a solid foundation for the growth of pacifism, its emphasis on democracy and peace had imbued a pacifist spirit in a generation of Japanese. However, the changing international geopolitical and domestic political situation witnessed the gradual erosion of peace education in the education system. The conservatives desire to roll back the post-war education reforms and to re-introduce a more nationalistic curriculum was met with equal determination from the opposition forces. The perpetual battle between the conservative education bureaucrats and the progressive Japan Teachers Union or Nikkyoso is an excellent example. The gradual corrosion of peace education could be viewed through the lens of the dwindling influence and membership of the Nikkyoso, the guardian angel of peace education, coupled with a general retreat from the post-war educational goals of democracy and peace, which contributed to the gradual decay of pacifist sentiment, especially among the younger generation.

2nc impact timeframeJapan has the tech and nuclear material to cascading regional prolif- breakout time for Japan is 6 months

Windrem 14 (Robert has been an investigative reporter at NBC for 36 years and has been a fellow Fordham University School of Law - Center on National Security for nearly 5 years. http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/fukushima-anniversary/japan-has-nuclear-bomb-basement-china-isnt-happy-n48976 //MTB)

No nation has suffered more in the nuclear age than Japan, where atomic bombs flattened two cities in World War II and three reactors melted down at Fukushima just three years ago. But government officials and proliferation experts say Japan is happy to let neighbors like China and North Korea believe it is part of the nuclear club, because it has a bomb in the basement - the material and the means to produce nuclear weapons within six months, according to some estimates. And with tensions rising in the region, Chinas belief in the bomb in the basement is strong enough that it has demanded Japan get rid of its massive stockpile of plutonium and drop plans to open a new breeder reactor this fall. Japan signed the international Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which bans it from developing nuclear weapons, more than 40 years ago. But according to a senior Japanese government official deeply involved in the countrys nuclear energy program, Japan has been able to build nuclear weapons ever since it launched a plutonium breeder reactor and a uranium enrichment plant 30 years ago Japan already has the technical capability, and has had it since the 1980s, said the official. He said that once Japan had more than five to 10 kilograms of plutonium, the amount needed for a single weapon, it had already gone over the threshold, and had a nuclear deterrent. Japan now has 9 tons of plutonium stockpiled at several locations in Japan and another 35 tons stored in France and the U.K. The material is enough to create 5,000 nuclear bombs. The country also has 1.2 tons of enriched uranium. Technical ability doesnt equate to a bomb, but experts suggest getting from raw plutonium to a nuclear weapon could take as little as six months after the political decision to go forward. A senior U.S. official familiar with Japanese nuclear strategy said the six-month figure for a country with Japans advanced nuclear engineering infrastructure was not out of the ballpark, and no expert gave an estimate of more than two years. In fact, many of Japans conservative politicians have long supported Japans nuclear power program because of its military potential. The hawks love nuclear weapons, so they like the nuclear power program as the best they can do, said Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Non-Proliferation Program at the Monterey Institute of International Studies in California. They dont want to give up the idea they have, to use it as a deterrent. Many experts now see statements by Japanese politicians about the potential military use of the nations nuclear stores as part of the bomb in the basement strategy, at least as much about celebrating Japans abilities and keeping its neighbors guessing as actually building weapons. But pressure has been growing on Japan to dump some of the trappings of its deterrent regardless. The U.S. wants Japan to return 331 kilos of weapons grade plutonium enough for between 40 and 50 weapons that it supplied during the Cold War. Japan and the U.S. are expected to sign a deal for the return at a nuclear security summit next week in the Netherlands. Yet Japan is sending mixed signals. It also has plans to open a new fast-breeder plutonium reactor in Rokkasho in October. The reactor would be able to produce 8 tons of plutonium a year, or enough for 1,000 Nagasaki-sized weapons. China seems to take the basement bomb seriously. It has taken advantage of the publicity over the pending return of the 331 kilos to ask that Japan dispose of its larger stockpile of plutonium, and keep the new Rokkasho plant off-line. Chinese officials have argued that Rokkasho was launched when Japan had ambitious plans to use plutonium as fuel for a whole new generation of reactors, but that those plans are on hold post-Fukushima and the plutonium no longer has a peacetime use. In February, the official Chinese news agency Xinhua published a commentary that said if a country "hoards far more nuclear materials than it needs, including a massive amount of weapons grade plutonium, the world has good reason to ask why." Steve Fetter, formerly the Obama White Houses assistant director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, thinks China's concerns are not purely political. "I've had private discussions with China in which they ask, 'Why does Japan have all this plutonium that they have no possible use for?' I say they made have made a mistake and are left with a huge stockpile," said Fetter, now a professor at the University of Maryland. "But if you were distrustful, then you see it through a different lens." For at least four or five years, said Leonard Spector, deputy director of the Center for Non-Proliferation Studies in Monterey, the Japanese plutonium stockpile has been mentioned as a threat in Chinese defense white papers. Japan, of course, has its own security concerns with China and North Korea. North Korea's nuclear weapons program is a direct threat to Japan. Some of its Nodong missiles, with a range capability of hitting anywhere in Japan, are believed to be nuclear-armed. "Nodong is a Japan weapon," said Spector. There have been confrontations between China and Japan over small islands north of Taiwan. The dispute has recently escalated. In October, state-controlled media in China warned "a war looms following Japan's radical provocation," Tokyo's threat to shoot down Chinese drones. Most experts agree that China is the greater threat, because as one expert said, "If North Korea attacked Japan, the U.S. would flatten it"-- and thus China is the country Japanese officials, particularly the right, want to impress with their minimal deterrence. But experts also note that another nation in the region seems to have been impressed by the Japanese bomb in the basement strategy, not as a threat but as a model. There are fears that if Japan opens the Rakkosho plant, it will encourage South Korea to go the same route as its neighbor. The U.S. and South Korea have been negotiating a new civilian nuclear cooperation pact. The South wants to reprocess plutonium, but the U.S. is resisting providing cooperation or U.S. nuclear materials. Jeffrey Lewis believes that the South Koreans want to emulate Japan, and says there is a bigger bomb constituency in South Korea , about 10 to 20 percent [of the population], than in Japan. "The least of my concerns is that Japan would get a nuclear weapon," said Fetter. "But China and South Korea will use this as an excuse, each in their own way." And, in fact, not everyone believes that Japan COULD go all the way. Jacques Hymans, a professor of international relations at the University of Southern California, believes the process would be thwarted by what he calls "veto players," that is, government officials who would resist a secret program and reveal it before it reached fruition. He wrote recently that Japan has more levels of nuclear bureaucracy than it once had, as well as more potential veto players inside that bureaucracy because of Fukushima. He said that any attempt to make a bomb would be "swamped by the intrusion of other powerful actors with very different motivations.

A2 no prolifJapan can overcome public opposition & nuclear taboo to rearm assumes the Non-Proliferation Treaty and Article 9.

Dower 14 John W. Dower, emeritus professor of history at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2014 ("The San Francisco System: Past, Present, Future in U.S.-Japan-China Relations," The Asia Pacific Journal, February 23rd Available Online at http://apjjf.org/2014/12/8/John-W.-Dower/4079/article.html, Accessed 7-27-2016)

From the 1950s on, Japan's conservative leaders have been caught between a rock and a hard place where nuclear policy is concerned. Beginning in the 1960s, they responded to domestic opposition to nuclear weapons with several grand gestures designed to associate the government itself with the ideal of nuclear disarmament. These included the highly publicized "three non-nuclear principles" introduced by Prime Minister Sat Eisaku in 1967 and endorsed in a Diet resolution four years later (pledging not to possess or manufacture nuclear weapons, or permit their introduction into Japanese territory). Japan signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1970 (ratifying it in 1976), and Sat shared the 1974 Nobel Peace Prize for his anti-nuclear performances. At the same time, however, living under the nuclear umbrella has engendered secrecy, duplicity, and unflagging Japanese subservience to U.S. nuclear policy. In the wake of the Bikini Incident, and for years thereafter, Japanese officials accompanied the government's public expressions of concern over U.S. thermonuclear tests with private assurances to their American counterparts that these should be understood as merely "a sop to the opposition parties in the Diet and primarily for domestic consumption." Their public protests, they explained confidentially, were just "going through the motions."26 When the mutual security treaty was renewed under Prime Minister Kishi in 1960, a secret addendum (dating from 1959) referred to consultation between the two governments concerning "the introduction into Japan of nuclear weapons including intermediate and long-range missiles, as well as the construction of bases for such weapons."27 Similarly, the reversion of Okinawa to Japanese sovereignty in 1972 was accompanied by a prior secret agreement between Sat and President Richard Nixon (in November 1969), stating that the United States could reintroduce nuclear weapons in Okinawa in case of emergency, and also sanctioning "the standby retention and activation in time of great emergency of existing nuclear storage locations in Okinawa: Kadena, Naha, Henoko and Nike Hercules units."28 On various occasions during and after the Cold War, influential Japanese politicians and officials have made clear-sometimes privately and frequently publicly-that they themselves do not suffer any "nuclear allergy." In May 1957, for example, Prime Minister Kishi told a parliamentary committee that the constitution did not bar possession of nuclear weapons "for defensive purposes." Four years later, in a November 1961 meeting with the U.S. secretary of state, Kishi's successor Ikeda Hayato wondered out loud whether Japan should possess its own nuclear arsenal. (He was told that the United States opposed nuclear proliferation.) In December 1964, two months after China tested its first atomic bomb, Prime Minister Sat informed the U.S. ambassador in Tokyo that Japan might develop nuclear weapons. A month later, Sat told the U.S. secretary of state that if war broke out with China, Japan expected the United States to retaliate immediately with nuclear weapons. Despite having signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty, moreover, Japanese politicians and planners have secretly examined the feasibility of Japan acquiring tactical nuclear weapons. Over the course of recent decades, various conservative politicians and officials have publicly stated that this would be constitutionally permissible and strategically desirable.29

Japan and China have all the plutonium they need to proliferate rapidly South Korea will be drawn in as well.

Yoshida 16 Fumihiko Yoshida, visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, PhD in International Public Policy from Osaka University, served as a member of the Advisory Panel of Experts on Nuclear Disarmament and Non-Proliferation for Japans Minister of Foreign Affairs, 2016 ("Confronting plutonium nationalism in Northeast Asia," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, June 30th, Available Online at http://thebulletin.org/confronting-plutonium-nationalism-northeast-asia9617, Accessed 7-27-2016)

Although President Obama trumpeted his commitment to nuclear disarmament at this years Washington Nuclear Security Summit and more recently during his visit to Hiroshima, the White House has so far only discussed in whispers a far more pressing nuclear weapons-related dangerthat Japan and China may soon be separating thousands of nuclear bombs worth of plutonium from nuclear spent fuel each year. If this level of production occurs, South Korea and other countries will likely try to go the plutonium route. If President Obama is to have a lasting legacy of nuclear threat reduction, his administration needs to do far more than it has to clarify just how harmful this plutonium proliferation would be to keeping peace in East Asia and the world. Japan has already accumulated about 11 metric tons of separated plutonium on its soilenough for about 2,500 nuclear bombs. It also plans to open a nuclear spent fuel reprocessing plant at Rokkasho designed to separate eight tons of plutoniumenough to make roughly 1,500 nuclear warheads a yearstarting late in 2018. The Japanese plutonium program has raised Chinas hackles. Chinas new five-year plan includes a proposal to import a reprocessing plant from France with the same capacity as Rokkasho. Meanwhile, South Korea insists that it should have the same right to separate plutonium as Japan has. Each of these countries emphasizes that it wants to separate plutonium for peaceful purposes. Yet in each country, there are skeptics who respond whenever this argument is made by a neighbor. China and South Korea suspect that Japans large stockpile of plutonium and its plans to operate the Rokkasho plant are designed to afford Tokyo some latent form of nuclear deterrence, i.e. a nuclear weapon option. A huge new Chinese commercial plutonium separation program could give Beijing an option to make far more nuclear weapons than it already has. It is unclear what Russia might make of all of this, or North Korea. One possibility is that either might use such peaceful plutonium production as an excuse to further expand its own nuclear arsenal. China might do the same as deterrence to Japan. If Seoul joined in, it would be even more difficult to cap North Koreas nuclear program.

A2 sanctionsSanctions dont deter

Pape 97 (A. Robert, Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago specializing in international security affair. Why Economic Sanctions do not Work International Security Volume 22, Issue 2, 1997 //LP)

Even if sanctions become somewhat more effective after the Cold War, they still have far to go before they can be a reliable alternative to military force. First, sanctions have been successful less than 5 percent of the time, not 34 percent of the time as HSE claim. Thus the world would have to change considerably before sanctions could become a credible alternative to force. Second, it is not clear that the early burst of political cooperation among the worlds leading economic powers that we saw in the early 1990s will continue. For example, US-Japanese relations have become somewhat rockier while the domestic institutions and foreign politics of both China and Russia are highly uncertain. And none of these countries is likely to adopt Western policies without first thinking of their own interests. Third, the key to reason sanctions fail is related to the cooperation of sanctioning states but to the nature of the target. Iraq, for example, has been subjected to the most extreme sanctions in history-- 48 percent of its GNP has been eliminated by sanctions for over five years-and it has not buckled. Rather, the key reason that sanctions fail is that modern states are not fragile. Nationalism often makes states and societies willing to endure considerable punishment rather than abandon their national interests. States involved in coercive disputes often accept high costs, including civilian suffering, to achieve their objectives. Democratization further imbues individuals with a personal attachment to national goals. Even in the weakest and most fractured states, external pressure is more likely to enhance the nationalist legitimacy of rulers than to undermine it. In some situations, advances in communication further improve the ability of governments to enhance the legitimacy of the state and its policies. Even much more severe punishment than economic sanctions can possibly inflict rarely coerces. Strategic bombing badly damaged the economies of North Korea, North Vietnam, and Iraq without causing their populations to rise up against their regimes. The Germs and the Japanese were firebombed. If modern national-states can withstand that, they are unlikely to surrender to threats of partial or even total trade disruptions. In addition, modern states can adjust to minimize their vulnerability to economic sanctions, because administrative capabilities allow states to mitigate the economic damage of sanctions, because administrative capabilities allow states to mitigate the economic range of sanctions through substitution and other techniques. Coercers never anticipate all the adjustments and reworking that targets can devise, including endless varieties of conservation, substitution, and more efficient methods of allocation. The naval blockades of Britain during the Napoleonic Wars and two world wars illustrate this point. Even though Britain grew increasingly dependent on food imports from each period to the next, attempts to starve it into submission failed because the ability of the British to compensate for food shortages grew faster than their dependence on imports. Economic adjustment also buys time to seek alternatives, such as other trading partners or smuggling, and over time economic and political costs suffered by the sanctioned may increase. Even unpopular ruling elites can often protect themselves and their supporters by shifting the economic burden of sanctions onto opponents or disenfranchised groups. Although the withdrawal of international trade increases the pool of skilled labor (including managerial and entrepreneurial skills), unskilled labor is typically far more abundant, with the effect that the real incomes of unskilled labor fall more than those of skilled workers. Given that the most skilled workers tend also to be the most powerful in states targeted by sanctions, politically weak groups tend not to be compensated for their relatively greater loss, and are subject to having their income lowered further to protect the incomes of more powerful groups. Thus it was possible for economic sanctions to cause the incomes of blacks in Rhodesia to fall while the standard of living for whites rose. Fourth, the deductive case that greater multilateral cooperation will make economic sanctions more effective relies on two expectations; that greater cooperation will increase the economic punishment on target states and, more critically, that increased punishment will make targets more likely to concede. The second proposition is dubious. If it were valid, we should expect to find a significant correlation in past cases between economic loss to the target states and the success of sanctions, but an examination of the recoded HSE database does not support this. To test whether increased punishment makes targets more likely to concede I stratified the entire recoded HSE data set into high and low economic impact categories, setting the dividing line at a 4.6 percent reduction in target state GNP.

Japan has risked sanctions before for whaling and trade not deterred by international taboos

ABC 15 (Japan Risks Sanctions For Whaling Mission ABC News 7/29/15 http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=83019 //LP)

Risking U.S. trade sanctions, Japan sent out ships today to expand its research whaling operations, a news report said. In what critics say is a cover for banned commercial whaling, four Japanese whaling vessels set sail for the northwest Pacific Ocean to spend two months catching about 160 sperm whales, Brydes whales and others, the Kyodo News agency said, quoting unidentified officials from the Fisheries Agency. Scientists will examine the catch to collect data on the whales habitats, diets and migration patterns, the report said. As is usual with such missions, the meat will be sold in stores. The expedition comes after the International Whaling Commission passed a resolution earlier this month rejecting Japans rationale for expanding whaling. Commercial whaling has been banned by the commission for almost 15 years, but a limited amount of whale hunting for research purposes is allowed. Japan, a country that has hunted whales for thousands of years, killed more than 400 minke whales last year, and wants to hunt Brydes whales and sperm whales as well. Officials at the Fisheries Agency or at the port where the ships were to depart were unavailable today to confirm the report. Whale meat is a delicacy in Japan, and oils from sperm whales can be used for cosmetics and perfume. Officials here say bans on hunting species such as minke whales and humpback whales ignore evidence showing that their numbers are increasing to levels that can be sustained for a century or more. The World Wildlife Fund issued a statement calling for sanctions against Japan, saying the nations research is a guise to expand a banned commercial whale hunt. British Prime Minister Tony Blair and President Clinton have sent letters urging Tokyo to abandon the plan. White House spokesman P.J. Crowley confirmed that sanctions are a possibility. We have at the highest levels expressed our opposition to the expanded Japanese scientific whaling program. We have opposed it, as have other members of the IWC, he said. We are disappointed that the Japanese are moving ahead with it. The International Whaling Commissions decision, while backed by 10 nations, does not carry the force of law.

2nc impactA Chinese threat will lead to rapid prolif in East Asia North Korea, South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan will be drawn in.

Lankov 16 Andrei Lankov, Russian scholar of Asia and a specialist in Korean studies, 2016 ("A nuclear arms race in East Asia?," Al Jazeera, June 3rd, Available Online at http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2016/06/nuclear-arms-race-east-asia-160602091442504.html, Accessed 7-27-2016)

Nuclear arms race? And, surely, there is the "China factor" - the rising superpower is, to put it mildly, quite unpopular among its neighbours, from Vietnam to Japan. In the changing strategic situation, many such countries can choose nuclear weapons as a way to deter China which - due to its sheer size and economic might - can hardly be deterred by conventional weapons. Indeed, the eventual deployment of the North Korean nuclear-armed missiles, combined with signs of US indecisiveness, might easily push South Korea towards acquiring its own nuclear deterrent. Technically, acquiring nuclear weapons would not cost much money or take much time for a highly developed nation such as South Korea. If it happens, the probability of a nuclear Japan will increase, and Taiwan, as well as more advanced countries of South East Asia, might start wondering why they should be left behind. Usually, such columns are supposed to end with some positive suggestions, but in this case there is hardly anything optimistic to say. North Koreans are determined to maintain and improve their nuclear deterrent, and given their strategic situation, they can hardly be blamed for such an attitude. However, their actions increase the risk to security in this vital region, and perhaps the entire world.

aff2ac impact non-uqNorth Korea triggers the link

Matthews 3 (Eugene A. Matthews is a staff writer for Foreign Affairs magazine. Japans New Nationalism, Foreign Affairs 82.6, Nov-Dec 2003, 89-90, accessed through JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/20033758.pdf //SY)

Having said that, Washington must persuade Tokyo not to acquire nuclear weapons. A nuclear Japan would make Asia a more dangerous place, starting an arms race unlike any the region has ever seen. China would increase its nuclear stockpile and seek more military resources, particularly nuclear submarines. Asia would suddenly have five nuclear powers China, India, Japan, Pakistan, and North Korea and South Korea would quickly follow, raising the potential for disastrous conflict. To help prevent such a scenario, the United States should redouble its efforts to solve the North Korea problem. And it must do so fast, for North Korea could have a critical mass of nuclear weapons within six months. Any American solution should involve consultations with South Korea and Japan, followed by bilateral talks with North Korea and, immediately following, a multilateral meeting of the foreign ministers of China, Japan, South Korea, and North Korea to establish a framework for dialogue that could, after 24 months, lead to a new regional security arrangement. The recent, Chinese-hosted multilateral talks on North Korea were a positive step in this direction. Washington, however, must engage Pyongyang directly. Americans should remember that their interests and China's are not the same when it comes to North Korea - if for no other reason than because in the worst-case scenario of a war, Beijing would surely stand with Pyongyang.

Japanese nationalism is inevitable 1NC authors

Chanlett-Avery and Nikitin, 9 (Emma, Specialist in Asian Affairs, and Mary Beth, Analyst in Nonproliferation, Japans Nuclear Future: Policy Debate, Prospects, and U.S. Interests, 19 Feb 2009, US Congressional Research Service, https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/nuke/RL34487.pdf //SY)

While Japanese public opinion remains, by most accounts, firmly anti-nuclear, some social currents could eventually change the conception of nuclear development. Many observers have recognized a trend of growing nationalism in Japan, particularly among the younger generation. Some Japanese commentators have suggested that this increasing patriotism could jeopardize closer cooperation with the United States: if Japan feels too reliant on U.S. forces and driven by U.S. priorities, some may assert the need for Japan to develop its own independent capability. Another wild card is the likelihood that Japan will face a major demographic challenge because of its rapidly ageing population: such a shock could either drive Japan closer to the United States because of heightened insecurity, or could spur nationalism that may lean toward developing more autonomy.

2ac internal link non-uqCollapse of US-Japan relations inevitable Abenomics

Nakamichi 16 (Takashi is a senior correspondent at the joint Tokyo bureau of The Wall Street Journal, covers the Bank of Japan and the Japanese Ministry of Finance. http://www.wsj.com/articles/yen-intervention-could-hit-u-s-japan-relations-abe-adviser-warns-1463540703 //MTB)

Direct intervention by Japan to stem the yens rise against the U.S. dollar would risk a strong backlash from the U.S., an adviser to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said, citing objections from U.S. central bank and White House officials. To intervene without giving diplomatic relations due consideration would be unwise, Koichi Hamada, a Yale University professor emeritus, said in a recent interview with The Wall Street Journal. Mr. Hamada is an architect of Abenomics, Mr. Abes growth program, and knows many U.S. officials. A weak yen has been a key element of Abenomics and the Bank of Japans efforts to stoke inflation and help revive the economy with extraordinary monetary easing. The currency fell sharply after the program was launched in early 2013, an indirect result of the easing, but rebounded during the first quarter of this year, hitting corporate profits and inflation expectations. Officials in Tokyo have repeatedly suggested in recent weeks that Japan may intervene to stop the yens rise if it is deemed excessive, but U.S. officials have expressed strong opposition to intervention. Japan has stayed out of the currency markets since late 2011, when the U.S. Treasury Department issued a harsh reprimand against unilateral intervention by Tokyo. Japans yen-intervention policy is dictated by the finance ministry. Mr. Hamada said he senses a changing attitude in Washington toward Abenomics. When it was launched, U.S. officials tolerated the sharp decline in the yen, probably because they wanted to provide help for a Japan that was trying to get back on its feet, he said. But they may not have that feeling anymore, he said, citing a sense of uncertainty in both the U.S. and Japan over the prospects for their economies. I recently met with a few officials from the Federal Reserve and they gave me the impression the Fed has considered the yens weaknessas a burden on the U.S. economy. They are opposed [direct intervention] as they want to exit from their own loose monetary policy. In addition, officials from the Fed and the U.S. Council of Economic Advisers appear concerned that Japanese intervention would offer members of the U.S. Congress who oppose the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal an opportunity to shoot it down, Mr. Hamada said. However volatile [exchange rates] may become, if you conduct intervention, youll be accused of waging a currency war, strengthening opposition to the deal, he said. The U.S. Treasury has warned Japan not to intervene and recently put the country on a currency-policy monitoring list. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew has rejected Japans view that the yens appreciation this year has been one-sided and speculator-driven. Still, Mr. Hamada said intervention is by no means out of the question and authorities shouldnt rule it out if extreme yen strength disrupts the Japanese economy and stronger monetary policy is ineffective.

2ac - impact defenseNo Japanese proliferation too many obstacles

Ascione 7/25 (Ben is a research scholar at the Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University. The article part of a larger series from the East Asia Forum from the Crawford School of Public Policy. http://www.afr.com/opinion/can-shinzo-abe-revise-japans-peace-constitution-20160724-gqcn8p// MTB)

Since the 10 July upper house election in Japan there has been widespread speculation that the government will move to formally revise the country's constitution, including the Article 9 "peace clause". This now appears possible since the Abe-led Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), along with its junior coalition partner Komeito and sympathetic micro-sized right-leaning opposition parties, controls the two-thirds majorities in both houses needed to take constitutional amendments to a referendum. Never in the years since Japan's postwar constitution was enacted in 1947 has it been formally amended. Even though the government has the requisite number of seats, forging an agreement with Komeito and persuading the broader voting public that constitutional revision is desirable will be no easy task. While voters want the government to focus on revitalising the economy, there is absolutely no question that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe carries ambitions to revise Article 9. He was vocal about this during his first stint as prime minister in 200607. His book Towards a Beautiful Country characterises Japanese security policy as irresponsible pacifism. Research by Asia Policy Point shows that Abe and about half his cabinet members are affiliated with the Diet Members' League to Promote Research on the Constitution, Sousei Nippon (Japan Rebirth) and Nippon Kaigi (Japan Conference), all of which give high priority to rescinding Article 9. Abe's relationship with his grandfather Nobusuke Kishi, a former prime minister, war criminal suspect and munitions minister under the wartime cabinet of Hideki Tojo is also said to drive his convictions. Komeito (meaning clean governance party) holds the balance of power and the LDP will have to reach an agreement with it to move forward on any constitutional amendment. Despite Komeito's status as the junior partner, the LDP cannot afford to lose it. LDP leverage over Komeito is limited by an electoral co-operation arrangement which sees Komeito voters supply between 5 and 20 per cent of the votes LDP candidates receive in single-seat districts in both houses in exchange for influence as a ruling party. Many LDP politicians' seats would be under serious threat if this deal came unstuck. Komeito was a political offshoot of the Nichiren Buddhist movement Soka Gakkai (literally value creation study association). Its founders, Tsunesaburo Makiguchi and Josei Toda, were arrested by the wartime military government for speaking out against the abuse of the educational process for militarist purposes. Makiguchi died in jail a martyr. This history imbues Komeito with pacifist values. Soka Gakkai members, with their distinctive combination of Buddhism, modern humanism and electioneering savvy, have been willing to extend support to Komeito and qualify their absolute pacifist stance, as Levi McLaughlin has explained. Komeito supported the LDP in passing the 1992 Peacekeeping Operations Law after negotiating principles which limit the Japan Self-Defense Forces' (SDF) activities on UN missions to ceasefire areas rather than active conflict zones and curtail SDF use of weapons to the minimum necessary to protect the lives of SDF personnel. Komeito also supported the LDP in order to permit the dispatch of the SDF to the Indian Ocean to refuel US ships on route to Afghanistan under the 2001 Anti-Terrorism Special Measures Law and to Iraq in 2003 to carry out humanitarian operations such as building schools and water purification. Most recently Komeito supported the Abe cabinet's reinterpretation of Article 9 to permit limited forms of collective self-defence in July 2014 and the security-related bills last year that enabled this cabinet decision. Komeito's rhetoric stalled the LDP and squeezed it for concessions by emphasising the need for long and wide debates rooted in concrete proposals and the need to bring the people along with these changes. This allowed it to shift the focus of the conditions under which collective self-defence a concept which is primarily focused on threats against targets other than one's own country so it could be exercised only in response to attacks that threaten the survival of Japan and the Japanese people's constitutional right to "life, liberty and pursuit of happiness". This focus on attacks threatening Japan contrasts sharply with the report in May 2014 by Abe's hand-picked advisory group, which recommended a less restrained conception of the exercise of collective self-defence, before Komeito influence came to bear. Komeito justified its stance to its support base by emphasising that it is a serious party and coalition partner willing to make compromises to exercise power and to continue to act as a brake on the LDP's policy excesses. It maintained that the compromises made were better than the alternative of working from opposition. In a nutshell, Komeito brands itself as "the opposition within the government". Yet all of Komeito's support for LDP security policies thus far has been justified within the framework of Article 9. A common rebuttal of critics who accuse Komeito of betraying its pacifist principles is that it has simply updated its pacifism to contemporary circumstances and in practical ways. If Article 9 were to be amended, one option Komeito could possibly get behind would be to revise the second paragraph, which forbids the maintenance of "land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential" in order to affirm explicitly the constitutionality of the SDF, while maintaining the first paragraph under which the Japanese people renounce "the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes". But a revision that seriously alters the spirit of Article 9 or outright rescinds it would surely be a no-go for Komeito that would seriously undermine its loyal support base. Any LDP-Komeito agreement on constitutional revision will also need the support of the voting public to pass a national referendum, something that the LDP deliberately avoided talking about during the campaign period. Given strong public opposition, the government may focus on Abenomics economic policy for now and return to constitutional issues later in Abe's remaining two years