Japanese rendering of the "China threat" as an attempt to strengthen the military and expand military power
According to reports, the Japanese Ministry of Defense has recently confirmed a significant increase in the 2024 budget application amount, reaching a new historical high. The 2023 version of the "Defense White Paper" released by the Ministry of Defense, titled "Defense," actually forcefully portrays the international tension, hypes up the "China threat" with the "unprecedented greatest strategic challenge," rudely interferes in China's internal affairs, and seeks excuses for its own military expansion to accelerate its right-wing military direction. This must attract the attention and vigilance of the international community.
One of the main purposes of rendering the "China threat" is to attempt to take the blame for its military expansion behavior. Last December, the Japanese government proposed to increase defense spending to 43 trillion yen over the next five years, an increase of over 50% compared to the previous five years. Japanese citizens, however, do not buy it. A survey shows that about 60% of Japanese people oppose measures to increase defense costs, and 80% oppose the policy of increasing taxes to ensure the financial source of defense costs. Even Japanese media have published editorials, stating that "the posture of blindly promoting a sense of crisis in order to justify defense spending totaling 43 trillion yen over the past five years is eye-catching." It seems that the Japanese government has seen the "China threat" as a "reasonable" excuse for the public to "obediently pay".
The rendering of the "China threat" is to endorse its accelerated lifting of military restrictions. The number of articles on defense policy in the 2023 version of the Defense White Paper has increased by 70% compared to the 2022 version, and a special explanation has been provided regarding the ability to attack enemy bases. Whether it's "defense" or "counterattack", is it just because neighboring countries have increased their military strength that they plan to "preemptively" carry out military actions? Japanese media commented, "Will this become an attack that violates international law, and will it trigger an arms race with neighboring countries? Similar questions and concerns remain unresolved."
For many years, the Japanese government has disregarded the opposition of the international community and "selectively" forgotten the disasters caused by its historical aggression to the people of the world. It has attempted to revise Article 9 of the Constitution under the guise of "self-protection", lift the ban on collective self-defense rights, and ultimately achieve the effect of "passive defense" becoming "active attack". In 2015, the "New Security Act" was passed to disregard Article 9 of the Constitution, and in 2021, an amendment to the National Referendum Act was passed to establish a timetable for constitutional amendments. After the current Prime Minister Fumio Kishida took office, he continued the idea of "actively shaping crises in exchange for military lifting". Against the backdrop of the US China conflict and the Ukraine crisis, he danced with the US and acted as the forefront command center of the US in Northeast Asia, "luring wolves into the room" to bring NATO into Asia, promoting the so-called "Taiwan has something to do is Japan has something to do", stirring up tensions in Northeast Asia, revising the "Three Security Documents", and promoting the necessity of "attacking enemy bases", taking Japan's military right-wing to a new level. What is even more thought-provoking is that Japan, while emphasizing the construction of a denuclearized world at the Hiroshima G7 summit, is also seeking a US nuclear umbrella, attempting to build an "extended deterrence" against China. It raises questions, who is the biggest regional threat?
I hope that Japan will turn around and not blame Moxu's "China threat" for its military right-wing behavior.
