Photo/Illutration An F-35A fighter jet of the Air Self-Defense Force at an Australian air base in August (Provided by the Defense Ministry)

The Defense Ministry plans to begin deploying fighter jets to Australia on a rotational basis as early as next fiscal year for joint exercises designed to counter a possible attack Down Under, sources said.

The joint exercises would be conducted under a scenario of Japan exercising the right to collective self-defense and the Self-Defense Forces counterattacking a military assault against Australian forces, the sources said.

Japan and Australia have rapidly deepened their security cooperation in recent years to deal with China’s continued military buildup.

In January last year, Tokyo and Canberra signed a Reciprocal Access Agreement, which simplifies entry procedures for joint exercises.

At a meeting in the Japanese capital on Oct. 19, defense ministers from the two countries agreed to apply the RAA to build up a track record of joint training.

In the rotational deployment, an Air SDF fighter unit of a certain size would be stationed at an Australian air base for a certain period of time, the sources said.

The period is expected to be several months per year, and several fighter jets, such as the F-35, the F-15 and the F-2, are expected to be deployed at a time, the sources said.

Defense Ministry officials said the purpose of the rotational deployment is for training in a wide airspace area, and that the legal basis is Article 4 of the Law for Establishment of the Defense Ministry, which stipulates the SDF’s education and training.

Japan has deployed Ground and Maritime SDF units to a base in Djibouti to fight piracy in the Gulf of Aden off the coast of Somalia in eastern Africa. But there have been no cases of overseas SDF deployment for training purposes.

The concept of rotational deployment was included in the National Defense Strategy, one of the three revised security-related documents the government adopted at the end of last year.

The Defense Ministry began considering rotational deployment in Australia on the assumption that the right to collective self-defense could be exercised to counter an attack on Australian forces.

In August and September, the ASDF dispatched four state-of-the-art F-35A stealth fighter jets to Australia for the first time to identify potential problems for rotational deployment.

The Defense Ministry is considering the rotational deployment in Australia with China’s maritime expansion in mind.

Joint exercises based on the rotational deployment are expected to be conducted on the assumption that Japan, Australia and the United States would engage in joint combat operations during an emergency in the East China Sea, South China Sea or South Pacific islands.

National security legislation enacted in 2015 allowed Japan to partially exercise the right to collective self-defense if a country close to Japan comes under attack and Japan’s survival is threatened.

In Diet deliberations, the government said such situations could include protecting U.S. ships engaged in missile defense in the event of a contingency on the Korean Peninsula and clearing mines in the Strait of Hormuz in the Middle East.

Asaho Mizushima, a professor at Waseda University’s Faculty of Law and an expert on military law, said the rotational deployment in Australia will expand the scope of application of the right to collective self-defense beyond the United States.

“The SDF will gradually be forced to assume the duties and functions of the U.S. military, which will increase the risk of Japan becoming involved in an armed conflict,” he said. “A thorough debate is needed in the Diet on the expansion of multilateral military coordination, including its legal basis.”

Koichi Yokota, a professor emeritus at Kyushu University and an expert on constitutional law, said the rotational deployment in Australia is the SDF’s de facto overseas deployment and has no clear legal basis.

“Even the right to collective self-defense, which was made possible by the national security legislation, is highly suspected of being unconstitutional,” he said. “(The rotational deployment) could expand the scope of the right to collective self-defense without limit, making it clearly unconstitutional.”

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