Al Jazeera English
Japan Coast Guard a tool of maritime security
The Japan Coast Guard (JCG) is a civilian law enforcement organization that performs both homeland security and non-homeland security missions under the auspices of Japan’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport, and Tourism. Established on 1 May 1948 as the Japanese Maritime Safety Agency, the JCG was renamed in April 2000.
The JCG’s top position has been held since the summer of 2016 by Vice Admiral Satoshi Nakajima. He is only the second JCG officer to serve as commandant. Until 2013, the post was held by civil servants from within the ministry. Nakajima’s senior leadership team consists of a vice commandant and a vice commandant of operations.
According to its official website, JCG missions include:
• Maintaining maritime order
• Guarding territorial waters and the exclusive economic zone
• Saving lives
• Protecting the marine environment
• Preparing for disasters
• Exploring the ocean
• Ensuring maritime traffic safety
• Connecting the seas
To perform these missions, the JCG has a fleet of 452 vessels and craft, to include 128 patrol vessels, 238 patrol craft, 63 special guard and rescue craft, 13 hydrographic survey vessels, 7 lighthouse tenders, and 3 training boats. That surface fleet is augmented by 26 aircraft, 48 helicopters, and more than 5,300 visual, radio, and other aids to navigation. The JCG plans to expand to 142 patrol vessels by the end of 2020.
Headquartered in Tokyo, the JCG is administratively divided into 11 regional headquarters. Subordinate units reporting to the various regional headquarters include coast guard offices and stations, vessel traffic service centers, and hydrographic observatories.
Currently, the JCG has an end strength of 13,522 persons and a budget of 210 billion yen ($1.869 billion U.S.) effective the start of Japan’s fiscal year on 1 April 2017. This represents an 11 percent increase in funding over last year, primarily in response to China’s belligerence in the South and East China seas and provocations from North Korean fishing boats. According to geopolitical analysis firm STRATFOR, the increase “points to the importance of the coast guard forces as tools of maritime security and enforcement.” Moreover, recent statements by Japanese Prime Minster Shinzo Abe make it appear better days are ahead for the JCG in terms of newer platforms.
The JCG also operates the Japan Coast Guard Academy in Kure, Hiroshima, and the Coast Guard School in Maizuru, Kyoto, with satellite branches in Moji and Miyagi. Established in April 1951, the academy is tasked with training the next generation of JCG leaders. In addition to their academic studies, cadets deploy on board the training ship Kojima for three months as part of a cruise that circumnavigates the globe. The Coast Guard School offers four programs—navigational systems, aviation, information systems, and ocean science—and operates the training ship Miura. Other activities overseen by the JCG include the JCG Band, the Coast Guard Research Center, Friends of the JCG, the Coast Guard Museums in Kure and Yokohama, the Hydrographic and Oceanographic Museum, and the Marine Information Service Office.
In his U.S. Naval Institute oral history, Admiral Thomas Collins, Commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard from 2002 to 2006, remarked, “If there’s one organization in the world that’s a mirror image of the United States Coast Guard, it’s the Japan Coast Guard.” That mirror image is attributable to U.S. Coast Guard Captain Frank M. Meals, who, while assigned to the postwar occupation staff of General Douglas MacArthur in February 1946, was directed to work with the Japanese to establish a maritime safety agency in Japan. He did just that, and the rest is history.
Jim Dolbow is editor of The Coast Guardsman’s Manual, 10th edition, published by the Naval Institute Press, and a senior acquisitions editor for professional development books at the U.S. Naval Institute.