Commentary China is a growing military challenge to its neighbors, one that is expanding in terms of size, capabilities, and quality. Nowhere has this growing insecurity regarding China been more self-evident than in Japan. Beijing is increasingly hardline and assertive in pushing its regional great-power objectives, largely because its improving military permits such an aggressive approach. It is, quite simply, the foremost military threat to the West and to the political-military status quo in the Asia-Pacific region. A decade ago, Tokyo was much more tolerant of the Chinese regime’s bad behavior. Japan’s 2010 defense white paper noted merely that China’s regional military activities were a “concern for the region,” and that “we need to carefully analyze it.” Today, the mood in Tokyo is much darker. In its 2021 defense white paper, Japan bluntly accused China of continuing “its unilateral attempts to change the status quo in the East and South …
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