Japan is arming for a long range fight, and China is worried

Tokyo is building a military and intelligence architecture very different from the one that defined its postwar era Released in early August, the Japanese Ministry of Defense’s latest white paper signals that Tokyo, under Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, is converting years of incremental modernization into a more integrated and far-reaching national-security architecture – one that is altering the strategic landscape along China’s eastern periphery. It envisages a system designed not merely to absorb an attack, but to conduct strikes farther from Japanese territory.The white paper frames Japan’s security environment as the most severe and complex since the end of World War II. It points to Chinese military activities near Japanese waters, the Taiwan question, North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs, and closer coordination among China, Russia, and North Korea. These are Tokyo’s stated assessments. More consequential is the early revision of Japan’s three core security documents – the National Security Strategy, National Defense Strategy, and Defense Buildup Program – and the translation of the post-2022 defense expansion into a tighter, more comprehensive system.Two developments ...