The Japanese public’s national security awakening – and its limits

What the Asahi poll says about national security

Source: Ministry of Defense, Japan

Every year the Asahi Shimbun marks Constitution Day on 3 May by conducting a large survey by mail starting in February, asking respondents to share not only their thoughts about Japan’s postwar constitution but also Japan’s democracy more broadly. This year’s survey was sent to 3,000 voters across 333 electoral constituencies. 2,014 recipients responded; 1,967 were ultimately included in the sample. This is the second of two articles about the Asahi poll. The first considers what it reveals about Japanese democracy. The second looks at what it says about the public’s shifting attitudes on national security.

Ahead of his hosting of the G7 summit in Hiroshima this month, Time has featured Prime Minister Kishida Fumio on its cover, proclaiming that the prime minister “wants to abandon pacifism – and make his country a true military power.” It is a bold claim that has generated considerable discussion within Japan, prompted the Foreign Ministry to voice some concerns about the phrasing, and led Time to make some changes to the web version of the feature.

Regardless of whether this characterization of Kishida’s ambitions is accurate, what is missing from the profile of the prime minister is an appreciation of the extent to which the Kishida government has been pushing on an open door as far as the public’s attitudes towards measures to strengthen Japan’s armed forces are concerned. Indeed, the speed with which public opinion on raising defense spending, acquiring strike capabilities, and otherwise assuming a more assertive posture in responding to new security threats has shifted may prove to be one of the most significant and unexpected long-term consequences of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Before February 2022, it was difficult to find much evidence that the public was prepared to embrace these changes; after February 2022, the public shifted so quickly that parties more committed to the status quo, especially Kōmeitō, had to scramble to keep up.

The Asahi Shimbun’s 2023 Constitution Day poll provides ample data affirming that the Japanese public’s thinking about foreign and defense policy has changed significantly and perhaps irreversibly. More than a year after the start of the war in Ukraine, there is little sign that public sentiment is reverting to the status quo ante bellum.

The poll asks explicitly about the link between the war in Ukraine and Japan’s national security policies. When asked whether the invasion has “made you think that Japan should strengthen its defense capabilities,” 57% said that they came to think that Japan should strengthen its military capabilities, while 39% said their opinions were unchanged. The phrasing here is important. Presumably some portion of the latter already believed that Japan had to bolster its defenses. As such, nearly six in ten Japanese saw Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and concluded that Japan would have adapt to a new world, what Kishida has called “history’s turning point.”

The data suggests that 2022 truly was a turning point in how the Japanese public thinks about national security. For the sake of comparison, consider Asahi’s 2018 Constitution Day survey, which provides a good snapshot of how the Japanese public viewed defense issues before 2022. The survey showed that the public was dissatisfied with changes that had been made at that point and was disinclined to support additional changes. For instance:

• Asked whether they approve of legal changes that enabled the Self-Defense Forces to engage in collective self-defense overseas, 40% said they approve, compared with 44% who disapproved;

• 69% said that Japan should maintain its exclusively defense-oriented policy, while 25% said it should be revised;

• Only 33% said Japan should possess the ability to strike enemy missile bases, while 60% disagreed;

• 53% disapproved Japan’s possessing aircraft carriers, while 40% approved;

• Asked about defense spending, 58% wanted the level of spending to stay the same, 19% supported increasing it, and 17% wanted it cut;¹

• Only 17% said they were volunteer to defend Japan if it were attacked, even at the risk of their lives, while 74% said they would not;

• And 67% felt that the pacifism enshrined in the Constitution should be maintained, while 30% felt it should be adjusted for current threats.

This is not to say that the public was unconcerned about changes in Japan’s security environment. In the 2018, 48% said they were “greatly concerned” and 44% said they were “somewhat concerned” about the security environment surrounding Japan. But despite this sensitivity to the threats in Japan’s neighborhood, the public was clearly not prepared to support a large increase in defense spending, a decision to acquire strike capabilities, and other measures to “normalize” Japan’s defense posture.

The public may have shifted somewhat by 2020, when the Asahi survey asked whether respondents thought Japan should strengthen its defense capabilities. In that survey, while 32% were undecided, 53% said that they approved (26%) or somewhat approved (27%). Only 14% strongly disapproved (7%) or somewhat disapproved (7%). At the same time, when asked whether Japan should not hesitate to attack if it appeared that an attack was imminent, only 28% approved (16%) or somewhat approved (12%) while 36% disapproved (18%) or somewhat disapproved (18%), with 35% unable to say. Even in 2022, when the poll was conducted in March and April, weeks after Russia’s invasion began, 49% opposed the possession of counterstrike capability while 44% supported it.

But the 2022 poll also captured the mounting anxiety about Japan’s security environment that led to the dramatic changes seen over the past year. Asked to what extent they feel concerned about Japan’s security environment, 60% said they were greatly concerned, while 36% said they were somewhat concerned. In other words, there were a 25% increase in the share of the public saying that they felt “greatly concerned” about Japan’s security environment. Asked whether they feel more concerned than before about the possibility of war between Japan and countries in the region after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, 80% said they were more concerned, while 19% said their feelings did not change. In what is perhaps a demonstration of the availability and recency biases, more respondents said they were concerned about Russia as a military threat – 92% said they felt strongly (58%) or to some extent (34%) that Russia was a threat – than who said that they felt China (90%, 50% strongly and 40% to some extent) and North Korea (87%, 53% strongly, 34% to some extent) were threats.

The shifts captured in polling over the past year, including in the 2023 Constitution Day poll are downstream from these changing threat perceptions. In this year’s Asahi poll, the public approves of the possession of counterstrike capability by a 52%-40% margin. Support for attacking foreign targets if an attack was expected rose to 39% (16% support, 23% somewhat support), with only 22% opposed (10% opposed, 12% somewhat opposed) and 37% undecided. Support for strengthening Japan’s defense capabilities has also grown, as 61% support (29%) or somewhat support (32%) strengthening Japan’s defense capabilities, while only 11% opposed (5%) or somewhat opposed (6%) and only 25% could not say. As noted in the previous discussion of this survey, 69% of respondents either approve (46%) or somewhat approve (23%) of the LDP’s position on strengthening defense capabilities. After years in which public support for strengthening Japan’s defense capabilities was begrudging at best, a new consensus has formed in a shockingly short period of time that has enabled Kishida to move ahead with a new approach to national security policy.

I am not certain we will be able to isolate how Japan’s having a “dovish” prime minister like Kishida instead of a hawkish prime minister like Abe when Russia launched its invasion affected public opinion.² On the one hand, Kishida appeared to undergo the same shift in consciousness as many Japanese, which may have made him a more credible salesman for these policies. On the other hand, I do not think we should underestimate the genuine shock that many Japanese felt when they saw the images of Russia’s attacks on Ukrainian cities and, with the help of saturation media coverage, began to make the connections to Japan’s own security. I thought it was noteworthy that when asked to what extent they think about defense issues in their daily lives, 18% said often, 49% said sometimes, 26% said not often, and 6% said not at all. It is hard to find previous data points for comparison, but it is reasonable to assume that they were lower in the past. The public’s support for the exclusively defense-oriented policy may be shifting too: although 59% support maintaining it, compared with 36% who say it should be revised, those numbers were 69% and 25% in 2018, meaning that net support fell twenty-one percentage points between from 2018 to 2023.

That said, the fact that nearly 60% of respondents still want Japan to focus primarily on defensive measures suggests there are still limits to Japan’s new defense consciousness. The public still not only would prefer to avoid being directly drawn into wars. 80% said they are greatly concerned (28%) or somewhat concerned (52%) about Japan’s drawn into a conflict between the United States and China over Taiwan. When asked what role Japan should play in the event of a conflict over Taiwan, only 11% said Japan should fight alongside the U.S. military, compared with 56% who said it should provide logistical support and 27% who said it should engage in no activities alongside the U.S. in a Taiwan conflict. Indeed, when asked how Japan should manage its relationship with China, 70% said it should deepen its diplomatic and economic ties with China, while only 26% said it should strengthen its defense capabilities, this despite the same poll finding that 50% see China as a threat (21%) or somewhat of a threat (29%) to Japan and only 15% seeing it as a partner (4%) or somewhat of a partner (11%).

Additionally, the public continues to attach value to Article 9 of the Constitution, with 37% saying it would be good to change it and 55% saying it would be better to leave it unchanged. The public’s attachment to Article 9 persists even as the public is prepared to consider other changes to the document, as 52% said it is necessary to revise the constitution, compared with 37% who said that it is unnecessary. I think the attachment to Article 9 suggests that even as the public has embraced higher levels of defense spending and even the possession of counterstrike capabilities, the public is still not prepared to think of Japan as a warlike country, or, for that matter, have other countries view Japan as a warlike country.

Ultimately, Asahi’s poll confirms that the Japanese people are prepared to embrace some once-unthinkable changes to Japan’s defense policies as the regional security environment changes. Public opinion on major defense policy questions has changed in a short time with minimal controversy. But it is still important to be mindful that even with these policy changes, Japan’s postwar identity as a country that abjures the use of force lingers on. The public may be prepared to accept that Japan needs new capabilities to deter threats, but is still reluctant to embrace a new identity as a military power readily prepared to use force.

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1. An Asahi poll conducted in January 2018 asked voters about the FY2018’s defense spending increase, which was the fourth straight year of defense spending increases. In that poll, 39% approved, 45% disapproved.

2. Although the counterfactual of what would have happened had Abe been prime minister when the invasion began is an interesting one.