China's increasingly high-tech military capabilities need to be watched closely, along with Beijing's marine research near Japan's exclusive economic zone, the Japanese government said in a defense white paper yesterday.
"China is seeking to shift the emphasis in its military forces from `quantity' to `quality,' moving to a position where it will have a nucleus of regular forces capable of coping with modern warfare," the annual report said.
"China has been modernizing its nuclear and missile forces as well as its naval and air forces. Careful deliberation should go into determining whether the objective of this modernization exceeds the scope necessary for the defense of China, and future developments in this area merit special attention," it added.
Japan has repeatedly expressed concern about China's marine research near waters Tokyo says are its exclusive economic zone.
Diplomatic sparring between the two Asian neighbors over an island group in the East China Sea -- known as the Senkakus in Japan and the Diaoyutai in China -- flared up in March, when Japan arrested and detained seven Chinese who had landed on one.
The report -- which comes as Japan's military marks the 50th anniversary of its postwar restructuring -- reiterated that North Korea's missile and nuclear programs posed a security threat.
Outlining Japan's plans to introduce a missile defense system, the report said Tokyo might need to review its decades-old self-imposed ban on weapons exports as the result of technical research with the United States in that area.
Japan's military is undergoing the most sweeping review of its forces in five decades to cope with new threats and a report is due out later this year.
Japan needed to develop effective responses to such threats, re-examine traditional notions on infrastructure and equipment, and seek to modify the scale of its forces while bearing in mind the capabilities needed to meet a full-scale invasion, the white paper said.
On North Korea, the report noted efforts by the US, South Korea, Japan, Russia and China to persuade Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear programs, including a uranium enrichment programme which the North has denied exists.
Analysts have said a door creaked open at talks in Beijing last month, with the first real sign of negotiations after Washington offered security guarantees and South Korea aid if Pyongyang agreed to dismantle its nuclear programs.
The report said North Korea was a threat not just to Japan.
"Taken together with its suspected nuclear weapons program, North Korea's development and deployment of ballistic missiles constitute a destabilizing factor for the international community as a whole and have generated intense anxiety," the paper said.
In 1998 North Korea fired a ballistic missile over Japan, prompting Tokyo to improve its missile defense and intelligence gathering capabilities, leading to the launch last year of its first two spy satellites.
Kouri Richins, a Utah mother who published a children’s book about grief after the death of her husband is to serve a life sentence for his murder without the possibility of parole, a judge ruled on Wednesday. Richins was convicted in March of aggravated murder for lacing a cocktail given to her husband, Eric Richins, with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl at their home near Park City in 2022. A jury also found her guilty of four other felonies, including insurance fraud, forgery and attempted murder for trying to poison her husband weeks earlier on Feb. 14, 2022, with a
‘PERSONAL MISTAKES’: Eileen Wang has agreed to plead guilty to the felony, which comes with a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison A southern California mayor has agreed to plead guilty to acting as an illegal agent for the Chinese government and has resigned from her city position, officials said on Monday. Eileen Wang (王愛琳), mayor of Arcadia, was charged last month with one count of acting in the US as an illegal agent of a foreign government. She was accused of doing the bidding of Chinese officials, such as sharing articles favorable to Beijing, without prior notification to the US government as required by law. The 58-year-old was elected in November 2022 to a five-person city council, from which the mayor is selected
DELA ROSA CASE: The whereabouts of the senator, who is wanted by the ICC, was unclear, while President Marcos faces a political test over the senate situation Philippine authorities yesterday were seeking confirmation of reports that a top politician wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) had fled, a day after gunfire rang out at the Philippine Senate where he had taken refuge fearing his arrest. Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, the former national police chief and top enforcer of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs,” has been under Senate protection and is wanted for crimes against humanity, the same charges Duterte is accused of. “Several sources confirmed that the senator, Senator Bato, is no longer in the Senate premises, but we are still getting confirmation,” Presidential
HELP DENIED? The US Department of State said that the Cuban leadership refuses to allow the US to provide aid to Cubans, ‘who are in desperate need of assistance’ US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday said that Cuba’s leadership must change, as Washington renewed an offer of US$100 million in aid if the communist nation agrees to cooperate. Cuba has been suffering severe economic tumult led by an energy shortage that plunged 65 percent of the country into darkness on Tuesday. Cuba’s leaders have blamed US sanctions, but Rubio, a Cuban American and critic of the government established by Fidel Castro, said the system was to blame, including corruption by the military. “It’s a broken, nonfunctional economy, and it’s impossible to change it. I wish it were different,” he told
RSS