TOKYO, Aug. 5 (Xinhua) — Japan’s Defense Ministry on Tuesday released “Defense of Japan 2026,” a white paper that deliberately distorts the regional security landscape and plays up so-called “external threats.”
Cloaked in the rhetoric of “peace” and “defense,” the document seeks to conceal Japan’s sinister agenda of expanding military capabilities and breaking away from its long-standing “exclusively defense-oriented policy.”
Hyping up a so-called “increasingly severe” regional security environment and peddling a fabricated “China threat,” the document is nothing more than a political smokescreen manufactured by Japan’s right-wing politicians to stoke security anxieties, manipulate domestic public opinion and find excuses to build up its military.
In fact, Japan is the one fanning regional tensions.
The administration of Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has openly made erroneous remarks concerning China’s Taiwan, repeatedly exaggerated security threats in the “Indo-Pacific region” and substantially accelerated preparations for war.
It has also pushed forward the militarization of Japan’s southwestern islands under the pretext of “responding to challenges,” continuously raising regional security risks and becoming a source of instability in the Asia-Pacific region.
The new white paper stresses the need for Japan to fundamentally reinforce so-called “defense capabilities,” but its plans have long gone beyond the needs of self-defense, exposing Tokyo’s ambitions to acquire long-range offensive strike capabilities.
In March, Japan deployed the Type 25 surface-to-ship guided missile and the Type 25 hypervelocity gliding projectiles in Kumamoto and Shizuoka prefectures, respectively, marking the country’s first deployment of long-range missiles with enemy base strike capabilities.
In July, Japan’s Self-Defense Forces conducted their first test-firing of U.S.-made Tomahawk cruise missiles from a destroyer.
According to the white paper, Japan will further expand such capabilities by developing air-launched and ship-launched variants of the Type 25 missile, advancing research on hypersonic missiles, and introducing foreign-made stand-off missiles.
This series of military development plans with pronounced offensive characteristics constitutes irrefutable evidence that the principle of “exclusively defense-oriented policy,” which Japan has long upheld since the end of World War II, now exists in name only.
More alarming still, Japan claims in the white paper to be using “comprehensive national power” to address so-called “challenges,” reflecting a dangerous mindset that seeks to place the entire nation on a military footing.
Furthermore, the new white paper introduces a new chapter on “trends in new ways of warfare” and significantly expands coverage of efforts to enhance Japan’s defense production and technological bases, emphasizing the incorporation of civilian technologies for security use.
It also openly advocates that safeguarding Japan requires not only the efforts of the Ministry of Defense and the Self-Defense Forces; collaboration from all of Japanese society is essential. This is, in essence, a dangerous attempt by Japan’s right-wing forces to mobilize society as a whole for comprehensive “remilitarization.”
No matter how lighthearted the white paper’s manga-style cover may be, or how many purported “regional threats” it invokes, it cannot conceal the intent of Japan’s right-wing forces to revert to military expansion.
The Takaichi administration’s headlong rush toward military buildup and rearmament will not only further erode the foundation of Japan’s postwar pacifist constitution, but will also inevitably harm Japan’s own fundamental interests and undermine peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region.
The new defense white paper once again exposes Japan’s dangerous neo-militarist agenda. The international community must remain vigilant.
