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Zhao Ziwen

China’s military build-up “could have a serious impact” on Japan’s security, Tokyo’s defence ministry has warned amid spiralling tensions with Beijing.
Japan had closely monitored People’s Liberation Army (PLA) activities stretching across the first island chain, the ministry said in a report released on Thursday.
“[China] is broadly and rapidly strengthening its military capabilities, centred on its maritime and air forces as well as its nuclear and missile forces ... Its active military activities have created a situation that could have a serious impact on Japan’s security,” the report said.
The document’s release comes amid soaring tensions between the neighbours over Tokyo’s stance on Taiwan, in addition to long-time sparring over defence spending and decades of friction triggered by wartime history and territorial disputes.
Japan, which says China’s 2025 defence budget is more than four times its own, is reportedly eyeing a significant bump in military spending for the coming year.
A Kyodo report last week citing government sources said Japan aimed to boost its 2026 defence budget to over 9 trillion yen (US$57.2 billion). If confirmed, it would exceed this year’s record 8.7 trillion yen.
According to official data, China’s military budget in 2025 reached nearly 1.8 trillion yuan (US$255 billion) – a 7.2 per cent annual increase that has remained unchanged for three consecutive years.




China’s missile forces have featured in Japanese defence assessments. The report released on Thursday indicates that nearly all of the PLA’s ballistic missiles – from short-range to intercontinental systems – are capable of reaching Japan. According to an accompanying graphic, China had about 3,100 missiles in its inventory last year and around 2,200 of them could strike Japanese territory.
The document says China now operates a far larger number of modern naval and air assets than Japan – particularly with its three aircraft carriers and 219 bombers.
Japan has closely tracked transits by the PLA Navy’s Liaoning and Shandong carriers across the first island chain and into the Pacific, as Beijing trains its carrier strike groups to support its blue-water navy ambitions.
The US’s Cold War-era island chain strategy leverages treaty ally Japan’s role to contain China’s eastward naval expansion.
The strategy was proposed in 1951 by then US secretary of state John Foster Dulles, as a way of using American-aligned island bases to contain the communist Soviet Union and China in the western Pacific.
The first island chain runs along East Asia’s coastline, from the Kuril Islands off far-eastern Russia through Japan and Taiwan down to the Philippines, while the second island chain is further east and includes the major US base at Guam.
The defence ministry report also said that China had significantly increased its coastguard patrols in the Senkaku Islands, disputed East China Sea features known as Diaoyu Islands in China, as well as drone activities in the East China Sea.


Further, it said that China’s disputes with other territorial claimants in the South China Sea threatened “key sea lanes vital to Japan’s energy and trade security”.
The report served as a supporting document for a government meeting last month on additional defence spending under a supplementary budget.
Leading the meeting, Defence Minister Shinjiro Koizumi accused China of a “lack of transparency” in its defence budget increases and military capability boosts. The recent commissioning of the PLA Navy’s third aircraft carrier, the Fujian, was “steadily enhancing” China’s operational capabilities, he warned.
The 2025 supplementary budget, passed on Tuesday, allocates 847.2 billion yen for military hardware including anti-drone systems, naval assets, missiles and US base infrastructure.
The boost comes less than two months into the right-leaning administration of Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, who took office on October 21.
Delivering her first major policy speech days later, Takaichi pledged to accelerate Japan’s military build-up to hit the targeted 2 per cent of GDP annual spending next year – ahead of the original 2027 deadline.
She has also brought forward an upgrade of the country’s security strategy, citing rising tensions with China, North Korea and Russia.


Relations between Beijing and Tokyo have plunged to new lows since Takaichi declared in parliament on November 7 that an attack on Taiwan could constitute a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan – potentially justifying military action.
Beijing has repeatedly demanded that she retract her remarks and that Tokyo reiterate its adherence to the one-China principle in full. It has also imposed retaliatory measures including a Japan travel alert and a seafood import ban and has cancelled concerts and cultural exchanges.
Beijing sees Taiwan as a part of China, to be reunited by force if necessary. Most countries, including Japan and the United States, do not recognise self-ruled Taiwan as an independent state, but both are opposed to any forcible change to the status quo and Washington is committed to supplying it with weapons.
China in turn has warned of Japan’s military expansion in recent years, as well as its close security and defence ties with US partners the Philippines and Australia.
Earlier this month, the two sides traded accusations over a mid-air fighter jet stand-off near Okinawa, where Chinese jets allegedly locked their fire-control radar on Japanese aircraft as the Liaoning conducted training exercises in international waters.


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China-Japan relations

China’s military build-up could ‘seriously’ affect Japan’s security, Tokyo warns

Tokyo has indicated that nearly all of the PLA’s ballistic missiles, from short-range to intercontinental systems, are capable of reaching Japanese territory. Photo: AFP  

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Release of defence ministry report comes amid soaring tensions with Beijing and a boost to Japan’s military budget and goals


Release of defence ministry report comes amid soaring tensions with Beijing and a boost to Japan’s military budget and goals.


China’s military build-up could ‘seriously’ affect Japan’s security, Tokyo warns

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Release of defence ministry report comes amid soaring tensions with Beijing and a boost to Japan’s military budget and goals

Release of defence ministry report comes amid soaring tensions with Beijing and a boost to Japan’s military budget and goals