Update on Japan's legislative process for Soryu sale to Australia

Shinzo Abe when appointed Prime Minister in December 2012. He is steadily altering Japan's defence policies and laws, in response to the threats from China, North Korea and terrorism.

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Japanese air force F-15s, based in Okinawa. They mainly protect Japanese territorial interests in the East China Sea area. Amended laws will provide greater legal backing for broader Japanese military activities.

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Japan's competitors (Germany and France) in the submarine sale to Australia have policies and legal systems well in place to sell to Australia. Japan's own defence sales legal system probably needs years of work to make sales to Australia sufficiently legal under Japanese law and more acceptable to the broad Japanese public. The time-lag is made more serious by Australia being Japan's first multi-billion dollar weapons customer. So as things stand today Japan is at a legal disadvantage compared to established weapon exporters Germany and France. 

The Abe Government also needs to establish greater legal certainty while Abe's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has so many seats in both the lower (House of Representatives) and upper (House of Councillors) houses of the Diet (Parliament).  

The mass of decisions and documents required by Japan’s Government and companies to sell Soryu submarines to Australia require major legislative changes. This is a short update on part of the legislative process.

In July 2014 the Cabinet of Japan’s Abe Government agreed on three new requirements for using the right of collective self-defence. The three requirements were (and are) that:

1.    there is an imminent and illegitimate act of aggression against Japan and also in some cases its allies,

2.    there is no appropriate means to repel this incursion other than the use of force in self-defence, and

3.    the use of force is confined to the minimum level needed to repel the attack.

On March 6, 2015 a council meeting of the majority LDP and its coalition partner Komeito further discussed revising laws. It was decided that an outline of security legislation will be formulated by the end of March 2015, and the government will start writing the texts of the bills in April 2015. The bills will amend such laws as:

-          the Law on Response to Armed Attack Situations, and

-          the Self-Defense Forces Law

The LDP sees actual changes to Japan’s Constitution as a long term goal requiring agreement in the Diet and also a referendum. Article 96 of the Constitution provides that a proposed amendment must first be approved by both houses of the Diet, by at least a super majority of two-thirds of each house (rather than just a simple majority). It must then be submitted to a referendum in which it is sufficient for it to be endorsed by a simple majority of votes cast. A successful amendment is finally promulgated by the Emperor, but the monarch cannot veto an amendment.

Soryu to Australia

The legislative changes mentioned above add legal legitimacy and also help build consensus for a non-pacifist Japanese defence policy. Actual Principles and Guidelines form part of the mass of decisions and documents required to sell Soryu submarines to Australia. Principles and Guidelines include:

1.     The Three Principles on Transfer of Defense Equipment and Technology of April 1, 2014 http://www.mofa.go.jp/press/release/press22e_000010.html and 

2. The Implementation Guidelines for 1 Implementation Guidelines for the Three Principles on Transfer of Defense Equipment and Technology http://www.mofa.go.jp/files/000034954.pdf
This was adopted by Japan's National Security Council on April 1, 2014 .

Within the Guidelines I understand that Provision 1,2)A will be applied in possible the Soryu or related technology transfer to Australia. The Provision is:

1. Cases in which Overseas Transfer of Defense Equipment and Technology may be
Permitted

2) Overseas transfers that contribute to Japan’s security, only if the transfers have positive meaning from the viewpoint of Japan’s security, and that:

A. are related to international joint development and production with countries
cooperating with Japan in security area including the U.S.,"

COMMENT

The Abe Government appears to be steadily working towards changes in laws needed to permit such exports as the Soryu to Australia.

The agreement of Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) with its more centrist coalition partner Komeito seems required for these changes in laws. Komeito’s power comes from its centrist nature and its numbers in both the lower and upper house of the Diet (Parliament). Komeito’s agreement to the wording the LDP wants in the laws may be an obstacle, if Komeito hesitates from April 2015 onwards.

It is difficult to assess whether the Principles and Guidelines needed to sell Soryus to Australia are currently overly strict or prescriptive. There are sensitivities in the Australian military over how Sweden, due to Sweden’s export guidelines, decided to embargo Carl Gustav anti-tank weapon ammunition to Australia during the Vietnam War. Sweden’s decision not to sustain the Carl Gustav weapon system with ammunition, in time of great need, was probably the main Australian concern.

I do not know whether Japan’s submarine sale competitors, Germany and France, have similar Principles and Guidelines that may potentially restrict sale or sustainment of their submarines.

Japan's defence laws may be modified to be less pacifist but most depends on how they are interpreted, by politicians, the judiciary and the public.

I would be grateful to Japanese readers if you could comment whether I have an accurate view or not.

Regards

Pete

Indian Possible Interest in Buying-Building Japan's Soryu Submarine - Australia

Two Prime Ministers - Japan's Abe and India's Modi. Are their countries close enough for a Soryu deal?

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The Indian press reported on January 29, 2015 that India, under submarine purchasing-building Project-75I (I for India), may wish to select six Japanese Soryu submarines for building in India. The Rs 50,000 crore project price converts to $US8,133,990,000 that is $US8.13 Billion (where one crore is 10,000,000 Indian Rupees and one Rupee is worth 0.016 US Dollars).

See reference on Submarine Matters to:
-  the slow pace of the Project-75I selection way back to 2008 and 2011
-  then an article of August 2014 (which also mentions the already building 6 Scorpene "Project-75" no "I")
-  see also the 2014 reference to the DRDO fuel cell which has complicated Project-75

If a legitimate tender process is held other contenders to sell a large conventional submarine are:
-  Germany (TKMS-HDW)
-  Russia (Rosoboronexport)
-  Spain (Navantia)
-  Sweden (Saab-Kockums), and 
-  France (DCNS). 

COMMENT

Several problems already seem evident in the possibility of Japan selling Soryus to India:

1. India's "build in India" intention may clash with Japan's (to date) insistence that any Soryus it markets should be built in Japan. 

There may be a solution that may allay many of Japan's concerns. If Japan is interested it can contact me by email - see email on my profile...

2.  Japan would be mindful of India's closeness to Japan's strategic opponent, Russia. Japan is very sensitive to the security of its submarine technology secrets. Therefore Japan would not want the secrets of any Soryu that is sold to India to be passed on to one of Japan's opponents. India has been close to Russia on a defence sales, weapons' development and on secondment of personnel, levels for decades. India and Russia are particularly close on submarine high technology matters - including INS Chakra, the Akula II SSN that Russia has long leased to India. 

3.  India may perhaps have a problematic reputation as a weapons system buyer from Western firms. France is unfortunate enough to be involved in both the major examples. 

a. The first example is in-building Project-75 (no I) where France (DCNS) has been assisting India to build 6 Scorpenes for the last decade (see Project 75 and third paragraph of this Indian article ). India has expressed displeasure with alleged French caused delays. Over the years India has increasingly wanted AIP in those Scorpenes - India sees AIP as important - in part to surpass the three AIP equipped DCNS Agosta 90Bs submarines operated by Pakistan. But India may not wish to pay the higher price adjustment that DCNS would want to charge (AIP being an expensive upgrade). India has countered with a project by DRDO to develop a fuel cell AIP. India may also be using the usual strategy of great powers (sellers and buyers) - which is delay for political and commercial leverage. 

b. Secondly, under the Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) competition - on 31 January 2012 it was announced that Dassault Rafale won that competition. The MMRCA competition may be worth around US$30 Billion. However on 10 January 2015, India hinted it would not sign the Rafale deal with Dassault but instead perhaps buy more Su-30MKIs or Su-35s from Russia. India may also be attempting to leverage a better result from Russia on the joint India-Russia PAK- FA stealth fighter-bomber project - also known as the T-50. 

4.  If India insists on AIP this may cause problems for Japan. In Japan's first 5 Soryus Japan included Stirling engine AIP from Sweden. It is unlikely that Japan would receive Swedish permission to sell Soryus with Stirling AIP to India. Sweden, after all, would prefer to sell its own Saab-Kockums  submarines, with Stirling technology, to India. If Japan accepted an offer from India-DRDO to build an indigenous fuel cell AIP (see above) this may be a problem or opportunity because Japan may be in a strong technological position to jointly or unilaterally develop an AIP.  

Broader Implications - Australia and Canada

If there is a prospect of "build Soryus in India" - even whether or not it happens - this may have implications for any Japanese Soryu sale to Australia. Perhaps "build Soryus in part or whole in Australia" might be more possible?

If India is serious about buying 6 very large conventional submarines - built in India - with AIP - then Germany's HDW 216 and France's SMX Ocean may both be stronger contenders than Japan's (build in Japan - maybe no AIP) Soryu. This may increase the production runs and drive down development costs for the 216 and/or SMX making them more attractive to Australia. Canada has also been grouped with India and Australia as a country with a relatively large budget in need of large, long range, replacement submarines.

Please connect with India's Rising Nuclear and Conventional Submarine Force, May 21, 2015 http://gentleseas.blogspot.com.au/2015/05/indias-rising-nuclear-and-conventional.html .

Pete

Japanese Concerns Over Any Soryu Sale to Australia

Prime Ministers Abbott and Abe, on April 7, 2014, when they concluded a framework agreement for co-operation on defence equipment and technology (including submarine hydrodynamics). This is/was a preliminary to any Soryu sale. Abbott's political position is now threatened. 
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As Prime Minister Abbott - the main Australian advocate for a Soryu deal  steadily weakens politically it is valuable to consider possible Japanese concerns and misgivings over a Soryu sale.

Several days ago an Anonymous commenter said [retired Admiral]"Kobayashi is not arrogant, he just does not want to sell sub tech, that’s all. Australian thinks that Japan wants to sell her subs like Germany, Sweden or France. But this idea is perfectly wrong and huge misunderstanding, Japan does not want at all. Soryu’s secret is more important and valuable than money which Australia will pay Japan." 

Enlarging on possible Japanese concerns yields the following possibilities.

Unlike other western countries involved in Australia's submarine selection - Japan is the only country actually in danger of conflict - with North Korea and to a lesser extent with Russia and China. Other contenders - Germany, France and Sweden - are not at risk. For these latter three countries the submarine selection is only a commercial-trade matter - while for Japan it is most importantly a strategic alliance, national security matter.

A sale of Soryus to Australia may weaken Japan's national security:

Selling to Australia would involve a major diversion of Japanese industrial and submarine corps resources to plan, train and generally liase with Australian industry and Australian submariners. Japan's limited resources might be better focussed monitoring or more active measures against Japan's potential enemies.

Sales to Australia might disrupt Kawasaki Heavy Industries (KHI) and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) submarine production lines to supply the Japanese submarine corps. This particularly in view of Japan's goal of expanding its submarine corps from the current 16 operational submarine to the goal of 22 submarines. More specifically there may be strategic pressure for a Soryu earmarked (by contract) for Australia on a production line to be diverted to the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) instead. Such a diversion might raise political and contractual difficulties for Japan.

The prospect of sales to Australia may encourage the Soryu's submarine builders (MHI and KHI) to modify the Soryus to a standard configuration that does not suit JMSDF requirements. For example it is possible that two reasons for Japan's decision to delete Stirling air independent propulsion (AIP)  from the future batch of Soryus were:
- Australia's assessment, since the 1980s, that AIP is problematic, involving negative trade-offs, that  do not meet Australia's needs, and
- for legal property right reasons Japan could not sell Swedish Stirling engine AIP technology to third countries, including Australia.

It is also possible the future batch of Soryu will have much longer range, to suit Australia's operational requirements but this longer range might not be ideal for the JMSDF's needs.

Due to China's trade value to Australia Japan cannot rely on Australia to support Japan in any confrontation or outright conflict with China (eg. arising from East China or South China Sea matters). Australains see the islands in the East China and South China Seas as more to do with current opportunistic economic claims than national historical claims. This means that in any conflict in those seas Australia may support the claims of its major trade partner - which is China.

Australia's security laws and rules may be detrimental to Japan's security overall. Part of the weakness would stem from Chinese government and corporate  influence over Australia. For example Australia's China situation may result in Australian steel-making companies inadvertently sharing newly acquired Japanese steel secrets with Chinese steelmaking business partners.

Australia's laws overall make racial discrimination illegal in employment - particularly for government jobs, including the submarine corps. A main area of Japanese concern might be Australian tolerance of former Chinese citizens, or ethnic Chinese generally, being inducted as Australian submariners or into broader Australian government or submarine-shipbuilding industry positions. China has a reputation for pressuring ethnic Chinese in the West - even if they have only distant cousins or elderly grandparents still living in China. The Chinese government can deny Chinese citizens careers, lose jobs, lose pensions or worse if their Australia based relatives are not cooperative. Australia cannot match Japan's ability to control the ethnic security of submarine crews or such security in the broader submarine industry.

[Superseded] "Future submarine selection December update expected"

New Japanese Defence Minister Gen [his first name is NOT an abbreviation for "General"] Nakatani. Nakatani intends to introduce a range of conservative (or internationally normal) defence policies to replace Japan's traditional "peace" constitutional defence policies.

[Note the December 15, 2014 article below was superseded on December 21, 2014 by the appointment of new Australian Defence Minister Kevin Andrews. 
 Superseded because a new Defence Minister Andrews (and his new Ministerial office staff) will have insufficient knowledge for perhaps two months to answer media and industry questions about a submarine selection process. 

- Also Japan has experienced political processes recently (the December 14, 2014 Japanese Elections, delaying Japan's Diet sitting schedules and mid December 24, 2014 appointment of new Japanese Defence Minister Nakatani) that will delay Japan's ability to formulate new new defence policies that would inturn backup a Japanese Soryu announcement.

- Also the Australian Government will be on firmer negotiating ground as Australia's Defence White Paper 2015 will be closer to publication - a paper that will partly justify the new submarine aquisition.] 

Brendan Nicholson in The Australian December 15, 2014 expects Prime Minister Abbott to make the future submarine selection update-announcement before Christmas. Full string of the now outdated commentary is http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/defence/tony-abbott-to-surface-with-plan-for-submarines/story-e6frg8yo-1227155893557:

Title "Tony Abbott to surface with plan for submarines"

TONY Abbott is expected to announce within days the start of the process for selecting the navy’s new submarines from a range of international options and for building and maintaining them.

The Australian has been told the Prime Minister’s announcement is likely to include the creation of a new defence industry entity to work with an experienced international submarine designer and builder.

The expected re-election of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government with a substantial ­majority will remove a significant hurdle to Japan providing new submarines for Australia.

Japan, Germany, France and Sweden are all keen to provide the submarines. The Japanese are ahead of the others because they have the most experience building conventional submarines large enough to meet Australia’s needs.

The government is developing a three-stage strategy to save the shipbuilding industry, involving buying submarines overseas but maintaining them in Adelaide, completing the navy’s three Air Warfare Destroyers and building eight new frigates in Australia.

While a Japanese submarine has for months been the most likely option, Japanese domestic politics remained an issue.

Defence officials are in discussions with their Japanese counterparts to see whether the submarine technology they have on offer would suit Australia’s ­requirements.

If that deal does go through, Australia is likely to share in the design and building of a new class of submarine that will be an evolution of Japan’s Soryu.

If Australia does buy a Japanese submarine, it will be modified to extend its range and fitted with the same potent combat system and torpedoes as US nuclear-powered attack submarines.

The new submarine is likely to be powered by advanced lithium batteries, which take up less space than lead-acid batteries. More batteries can be carried, which significantly increases the submarine’s range and reduces the time it needs to run on or near the surface while running its diesel engines to recharge the batteries. Modern conventional sub­marines using such systems can stay submerged, without snorkelling, for three weeks." ENDS.

Connect with my own commentary of December 10, 2014 Australian Future Submarine Choices - Need for a Plan B at : http://gentleseas.blogspot.com.au/2014/12/australian-future-submarine-choices.html

Pete

Australia may select Japanese Submarine

The Maritime Executive (MAREX) reported, July 9, 2014 that http://www.maritime-executive.com/article/Australia-Inches-Closer-to-Japanese-Submarine-Deal-2014-07-09 : 

July 09, 2014

Australia Inches Closer to Japanese Submarine Deal

BY MAREX

Australian Defence Minister David Johnston hailed the signing on Wednesday of an agreement with Japan as “an important milestone”. The agreement will deepen bilateral defense science and technology cooperation.

Australia’s Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe signed the agreement in Canberra during Abe’s visit to Australia. “This is an important milestone in the Australia-Japan defense relationship, and an integral part of the broader efforts to strengthen our strategic partnership,” said Johnston.

The agreement will facilitate deeper bilateral defense technology cooperation, and the first project will be the Marine Hydrodynamics Project, an important topic in relation to designing a submarine’s hull to ensure its low noise, stealth capabilities and to improve propulsive efficiency. 

The sharing may not be all one-sided. Scientists from Australia have invented sound-absorbing hull and mast tiles that absorb the radio-wave pings sent out by searching sonar sets. Japan is also said to be interested in radar technology developed in Australia that has proved to be effective at shooting down incoming supersonic missiles.

Currently the Japanese constitution prevents that country from taking military defensive action on behalf of allies, but Abe is looking to change that to allow for the concept of “collective self-defense”. Consequently, allies might be more inclined to assist Japan if needed. Australia and Japan have already agreed to work together on submarine design, and this change in policy is viewed as contributing to a growing alliance between the countries. 

Australia may ask Japan for help in designing a new class of submarine or may consider buying complete submarines from Japan. Australia’s previous government had promised to build 12 submarines in Adelaide for a total cost of around $40 billion, the country’s most expensive defense project. However, the Abbott government, elected in September last year, may downsize that and is said to be considering other options.

Of-the-shelf European submarines have been rejected in the past for being too small and lacking in range for Australian conditions, so Japan’s Soryu class are now an attractive prospect given the willingness of Japan to engage with Australia on the project.

“The language being used is unprecedented in terms of speaking of the special relationship, the depth and breadth of the friendship and their preparedness to share sensitive information with us,” Australia’s minister for foreign affairs, Julie Bishop told The Australian.

However, Australia still claims to be in discussions with other countries including Germany, France, the US and Britain. “This is not the only option available to us at this stage. It’s one of a number,” Johnston says.

The ability of any Japanese submarines bought by Australia to operate with the US fleet of nuclear submarines will be a significant factor. Any new Australian submarines are likely to include the same combat system and [US Mark 48] torpedoes as the US Virginia-class nuclear-powered attack submarines and near-silent propellers developed in the US.

If Australia bought foreign off-the-shelf submarines it would be a serious setback for the local shipbuilding industry. However, after delays and cost overruns in the Air Warfare Destroyer project, the government has already chosen to build a new series of naval supply ships in either Spain or South Korea." ENDS

PETE's COMMENT

Note that Japan in the next few years plans to develop a new generation submarine to start replacing the current Soryu's by the 2030s. What the Soryu's probably don't have (vertical multi-purpose locks (VMPLs)? Lithium-ion batteries?) - which Australia probably wants - might be incorporated into Japan's next generation submarine. 

Pete