China to dominate Japanmilitary planning

North Korea’s growing missile arsenal might be the most obvious andimmediate military threat facing Japan, but defence planners in Tokyoare focused on a much larger and more challenging foe as they preparefor the years ahead.China has stepped up military spending and already dominates the SouthChina Sea, through which Japan’s trade with major markets includingEurope and the Middle East flows.Now, Japanese military experts are worried Beijing may be on the brinkof opening access to the Pacific through a Japanese island chain thathas marked the limit of China’s military influence for decades.Tokyo sees unfettered passage for Chinese warships and warplanes throughthe Okinawan island chain as a threat to vital sea lanes.For China that access is part and parcel of becoming a global superpower.“Now, we are evenly matched but the reality Japan faces is that it isbecoming the underdog,” said Nozomu Yoshitomi, a professor at NihonUniversity in Tokyo who advised Japan’s government as a Self DefenceForces military analyst.In addition to having Asia’s second-largest military, Japan is alsodefended by US forces that have used the country as their main Asia basesince the end of World War Two.Under a security treaty, Washington is obliged to aid Tokyo if its territory is attacked.China has “essentially established de facto control over the South ChinaSea and the East China Sea is next,” said a retired senior US militarycommander on condition he wasn’t identified. “The United States, for itspart, has been in relative retreat in the Western Pacific for adecade.”Beijing is ramping up military spending to build a world-class fightingforce by 2050 with advanced kit, including stealth jets and, accordingto state-run media, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier.In 2018, Beijing plans to spend 1.11tn yuan ($175bn) on its armed forces, more than three times as much as Japan.That would also be around a third of what the United States pays for theworld’s most powerful military, including 30,000 marines in Okinawa anda navy carrier attack group based near Tokyo.“The pace of Chinese activity in waters around Japanese territory hasexpanded and accelerated,” Japan’s Minister of Defence Itsunori Onoderasaid this month. “China is building the capacity to operate in distantseas and that can be see with China’s acquisition of its first carrierand its construction of a second flat top.”China says its military is for defensive purposes and its intentions in the region are peaceful.China’s Defence Ministry did not respond to a request for comment.Japan’s defence outlays for the past five years have risen by just 1% a year.It will likely grow at around the same pace over the next five year planas health and welfare spending on an ageing population takes priority, agovernment defence official said.“Finance is our weakness, but our strength is the resilience of oursociety,” said another defence ministry adviser, who also asked not tobe identified.If Japan is able to hunker down long enough, he explained, the threatfrom China should recede as future internal strife, economic woes orother events prompt a retreat.To restrain Beijing in the meantime, Japan needs advanced weaponry andnew munitions able to strike targets further away, said the sources withknowledge of the plans.Japan’s defence reviews, which will likely be released in December, maypropose it establish its first joint command headquarters to coordinateair, ground and naval forces and strengthen co-operation withWashington, the sources said.New equipment may include amphibious ships along with aerial drones tomonitor Chinese activity and potentially target missiles in the boostphase of any launch.Japan’s military will get new air and ground missiles able to hit shipping and land targets at greater ranges.It will also place fresh orders for Lockheed Martin Corp F-35 stealthfighters including vertical take off and landing versions, the sourcessaid.The review will lay out plans to train more Ground Self Defence troops(GSDF) in marine fighting tactics and for their wider deployment toOkinawa.The GSDF’s unit there will grow to division strength from a battalion, said former defence minister Gen Nakatani.Yet as Tokyo formulates those plans, Beijing is already testing Japanese defences.In a manoeuvre in January that Japan protested as a “seriousescalation”, a Chinese submarine entered waters contiguous to disputedislands in the East China Sea claimed as the Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyuin China.That followed a series of longer range sorties by People’s Liberation Army Air Force bombers and fighters.China can “test the readiness and response of Japanese forces, to betterunderstand Japanese defences, and, over time, to engage in peacetimeattrition,” said Toshi Yoshihara, a professor and Senior Fellow at theCenter for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington. “IfChinese operations become routine, they force Japan to accept the PLA’sgrowing presence as a fact of life.”Tokyo was especially alarmed in November when six Xian H-6 bombers flewthrough a 290km (180 mile) gap in Japan’s island chain between Okinawaand Miyakojima, accompanied by an electronic warfare TU-154 and a Y-8monitoring plane.One senior defence official said the exercise “looked like a practice strike package on Guam”, another major US military base.China’s Defence Ministry did not respond to request for comment on the exercise.“The pace of Chinese activity is faster than we anticipated,” Nakatanisaid at his Tokyo office, where an arrow scribbled on a map of Japan onthe wall highlighted the breach in the island chain. “Japan’s securityenvironment has not been this harsh since World War Two.” – Reuters