Japan says China boosting military capabilities in broader areas
Also taking into account security threats from North Korea and Russia, the ministry's 2025 white paper said that Japan is on track to meet its goal of raising defense-related outlays to 2 percent of gross domestic product, "fundamentally reinforcing defense capabilities" amid U.S. pressure for higher spending.
China has been "increasing operational capabilities in more distant areas," the document said, adding that it conducted over 1,200 landings and takeoffs from aircraft carriers in the Pacific in total last year.
Among the latest moves not covered in the paper are simultaneous operations by two Chinese aircraft carriers, the Shandong and Liaoning, in the western Pacific in early June this year, which Japan confirmed for the first time ever in the waters.
The paper, summarizing the nation's security challenges and defense activities in the year ended this March, said China's "intensified military activities" have led to a situation that could "seriously impact Japan's security, which is a cause of grave concern."
China is also trying to enhance its capabilities to carry out "gray zone" operations, aggressive actions that fall short of armed attacks, by strengthening coordination between the military and the People's Armed Police Force, such as the coast guard, the paper said.
"Overall, we kept our serious view unchanged on the current security environment," which is "the most severe and complex" in the post-World War II era, a government official told reporters.
The paper also said that China may have "rehearsed some parts of military operations toward the reunification with Taiwan, including invasion operations," in surrounding areas of the self-ruled democratic island that Beijing regards as a breakaway province to be brought into its fold.
Regarding North Korea, the document described it as "posing an even more grave and imminent threat to Japan's security than before," with Russia's military activities in the Indo-Pacific region "posing a strong security concern," both the same expressions as in the 2024 report.
Russia and North Korea have been stepping up their military partnership amid Moscow's prolonged full-scale invasion of Ukraine since 2022, which North Korean troops have joined, while Pyongyang is continuing its missile and nuclear weapons development.
The paper pointed to the possibility that Pyongyang would receive military assistance from Moscow, such as "the transfer of nuclear and missile technologies."
Japan decided in 2022 to gradually increase its defense expenditure including related costs for the following five years with a target of 2 percent of GDP in fiscal 2027.
The nation's annual defense budget had long been capped at around 1 percent of GDP, or around 5 trillion yen ($34 billion) under its war-renouncing Constitution.
Meanwhile, U.S. President Donald Trump has been adding pressure on allies since taking office in January with his "America First" pledge, prodding NATO members to vow to invest 5 percent of GDP for defense and related expenses by 2035.
In the white paper, the Defense Ministry emphasized that it has secured "the necessary and sufficient budget," with outlays in fiscal 2025 totaling 9.9 trillion yen, equivalent to 1.8 percent of GDP in fiscal 2022.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Mainichi
4 hours ago
- The Mainichi
Bill Emmott: Japan should lead regional collaboration to cope with Trump 'typhoon'
By Bill Emmott, independent writer, lecturer and international affairs consultant During all the decades of the U.S.-Japan security alliance, which has been one of the closest security partnerships anywhere in the world, Japan has had to worry about two contradictory dangers: abandonment and entrapment. Abandonment would involve Japan's interests being ignored by its partner amid a deal with one of its enemies; entrapment would mean being forced to fight alongside the United States in a war chosen by the Americans but not by the Japanese. These worries about extreme outcomes have tended to alternate, depending on the political mood in Washington, DC, at the time. Yet currently Japan finds itself worrying about both abandonment and entrapment simultaneously. This may be as good a sign as any that the Trump administration represents a sharp break with the postwar past. The entrapment fear has always felt the likelier danger. It has now reared its head again in a surprising way, as senior US defence officials have been reported to have been pressing Japan and Australia to make explicit commitments about whether they would fight to defend Taiwan in the event of an attempted Chinese invasion or coercion. The surprise is that American officials are pressing such close allies for an explicit commitment when not even the United States itself, and especially not its Commander in Chief, President Donald Trump, has made its own intentions clear. This is not a total break with recent American administrations, but it does put Japan in a potentially awkward position. During the Biden administration a mutual concern over the security and stability of Taiwan did begin to feature in the US-Japan communiques issued after meetings between the Japanese prime minister and the U.S. president, showing that some sort of explicit commitment to working together to preserve the status quo was being sought by the United States. However, that is not the same, at least not politically the same, as actually committing yourself to fight a future war, in circumstances that cannot be predicted and without knowing what America's own stance would be. To do so would be politically extremely difficult, especially for a government that currently lacks a majority in the Diet. Beyond domestic politics, the immediate risk would not be of a war itself but rather of such a commitment causing a further worsening of Japan's relations with China, to no obvious purpose. Abandonment has always looked the less likely of the twin dangers, for having Japan as its largest overseas military base has mattered so much to America and its regional presence in the Indo-Pacific that the idea of it deserting its Japanese ally has looked implausible. This remains true, especially given the emphasis being laid by leading figures in the Pentagon and the Republican Party on the contest with China for both regional and global supremacy. However, President Trump is well known to be highly transactional, especially in foreign policy. He has also indicated a strong sympathy for the very 19th century idea that great powers are entitled to have "spheres of influence" in the areas around their own borders. He has, for example, expressed a determination that America should gain control over Greenland, the icy territory that is part of Denmark but adjacent to the north-east coast of the United States, has declared that Canada should become the U.S.'s "51st State," and has insisted the U.S. should regain control over the Panama Canal. This makes it conceivable, even if still improbable, that at some point Trump could be tempted to accept Chinese control over its "sphere" of Taiwan and the South China Sea in return for China accepting US control over territories in its region. That would give China control over the main sea lanes surrounding Japan and a greatly increased ability to intimidate other countries in the region, including Japan, South Korea and the Philippines. This is, admittedly, a rather extreme scenario. The identification by most members of Trump's Republican Party of China as America's leading global adversary, and the strong support for Taiwan held by those same Republicans, makes it feel especially unlikely. Yet the fact that the idea of such a "grand bargain" with China is talked about at all simply underlines how unpredictable is the foreign policy of this American president, with the range of actions and outcomes during the remaining three and a half years of his term looking wider than under any U.S. president in living memory. The governments of every longstanding ally of the United States are having to live with this uncertainty, one which reflects a broader question: using a meteorological metaphor, does Trump represent a temporary extreme-weather event, like an especially severe typhoon, or does he represent climate change, a trend that will endure? The safest answer is that he is a bit of both: his extreme volatility and hostile manner can be seen as personal and thus temporary, but some of the ideas he is purveying have a broader resonance in the United States that could persist after he is gone. The central role that America plays in the security of the Indo-Pacific gives Japan little choice other than to adapt to whatever extreme weather emerges from Washington, DC. The more forward-leaning stance Japan has taken on defence, first under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and then with the new National Security Strategy under Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in 2022, has had the dual purpose of increasing Japan's contribution to joint deterrence operations with America and creating more long-term options for national security in case relations with Washington become more fractured. Continuing and even enhancing this strategy remains Japan's only viable plan. What Japan could perhaps invest even more time in is in its already impressive diplomatic efforts in north-east and south-east Asia. To cope with the Trump "typhoon" and to increase Japan's own leverage over Washington at any time of crisis, it makes sense to work more closely with other countries that face the same pressures, starting with South Korea but also extending south to Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia and Taiwan itself. All these countries are facing hostility from Trump over trade while also needing to invest more in their own security and economic resilience, in a region in which the two superpowers, China and the U.S., are both unavoidable presences but also habitual bullies. It therefore makes sense to work together on trade, technology, security and other issues as much as possible, to increase bargaining power as well as resilience. Japan has a key role, as well as opportunity, to drive this regional collaboration. The contradictory fears of entrapment and abandonment can never be eliminated, but through collaboration they can perhaps be mitigated.
Nikkei Asia
5 hours ago
- Nikkei Asia
UK extradition change due to China 'repression' concerns, FM says
China David Lammy calls Hong Kong police arrest warrants 'totally unacceptable' U.K. Foreign Secretary David Lammy speaks at the Lowy Institute in Sydney on July 26. (AAP Image/Bianca De Marchi) SOPHIE MAK SYDNEY -- U.K. Foreign Secretary David Lammy suggested that a controversial government amendment to existing legislation that would potentially lead to limited extraditions of Hong Kong residents in Britain will actually enhance overall protections, as he lashed out at police in the Chinese territory for seeking fresh arrest warrants. In an address at Sydney's Lowy Institute on Saturday, Lammy said the government is removing Hong Kong from its Extradition Act 2003 because it is "hugely concerned" by what he called China's "transnational repression."
Kyodo News
8 hours ago
- Kyodo News
Japan, U.S. discussing scenario for nuclear weapons use: sources
TOKYO - Japan and the United States have been discussing a scenario, in which the U.S. military would use nuclear weapons in the event of a contingency, during talks on so-called extended deterrence, sources close to the two countries said Saturday. It is the first time the allies have delved into the issue, in a sign that they are seeking to strengthen the U.S. nuclear umbrella, under which Japan is protected, amid intensifying military activity by China, North Korea and Russia, the sources said. Japan is the only country to have experienced an atomic bomb attack and has long advocated for a nuclear-free world. However, it also relies on the U.S. nuclear umbrella for defense. The United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, and a second one three days later on Nagasaki in the final days of World War II. As part of the extended deterrence talks in recent years, Tokyo and Washington have held multiple tabletop exercises to strategize a scenario in which a conflict broke out in East Asia and the United States is pressured to use nuclear weapons, according to the sources. With that in mind, Japan and the United States reviewed how to coordinate and how to deal with issues stemming from the possible use of nuclear weapons, such as managing public opinion. Discussions also broached how much information the United States can share with Japan, the sources said. In December, the countries announced their first guidelines for extended deterrence -- including U.S. nuclear protection -- to better tackle regional security challenges. But details were not revealed due to the sensitivity of information related to national security, according to a senior Japanese Foreign Ministry official. Diplomatic sources said the guidelines stipulated the steps the countries would take should the United States use nuclear weapons under Article 5 of the bilateral security pact. Article 5 obliges the United States to defend territories under Japan's administration from armed attack. The sources close to the nations also said the guidelines made it clear that Japan can convey its thoughts on a possible nuclear weapons use. Since extended deterrence talks were established in 2010, senior-level discussions, led by top foreign affairs and defense officials, have been held once or twice a year. The dialogue was upgraded in July 2024, with the first-ever ministerial talks on the issue held in Tokyo to better coordinate the alliance with an eye on China's military buildup and North Korea's missile and nuclear development.
