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.
James Watson — the Nobel laureate co-credited with the pivotal discovery of DNA’s double-helix structure, but whose career was later tainted by his repeated racist remarks — has died, his former lab said on Friday. He was 97. The eminent biologist died on Thursday in hospice care on Long Island in New York, announced the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where he was based for much of his career. Watson became among the 20th century’s most storied scientists for his 1953 breakthrough discovery of the double helix with researcher partner Francis Crick. Along with Crick and Maurice Wilkins, he shared the
China’s Shenzhou-20 crewed spacecraft has delayed its return mission to Earth after the vessel was possibly hit by tiny bits of space debris, the country’s human spaceflight agency said yesterday, an unusual situation that could disrupt the operation of the country’s space station Tiangong. An impact analysis and risk assessment are underway, the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) said in a statement, without providing a new schedule for the return mission, which was originally set to land in northern China yesterday. The delay highlights the danger to space travel posed by increasing amounts of debris, such as discarded launch vehicles or vessel
IMPASSE: US President Donald Trump pressed to end the filibuster in a sign that he is unlikely to compromise despite Democrat offers for a delayed healthcare vote The US government shutdown stretched into its 40th day yesterday even as senators stayed in Washington for a grueling weekend session hoping to find an end to the funding fight that has disrupted flights nationwide, threatened food assistance for millions of Americans and left federal workers without pay. The US Senate has so far shown few signs of progress over a weekend that could be crucial for the shutdown fight. Republican leaders are hoping to hold votes on a new package of bills that would reopen the government into January while also approving full-year funding for several parts of government, but
TOWERING FIGURE: To Republicans she was emblematic of the excesses of the liberal elite, but lawmakers admired her ability to corral her caucus through difficult votes Nancy Pelosi, a towering figure in US politics, a leading foe of US President Donald Trump and the first woman to serve as US House of Representatives speaker, on Thursday announced that she would step down at the next election. Admired as a master strategist with a no-nonsense leadership style that delivered for her party, the 85-year-old Democrat shepherded historic legislation through the US Congress as she navigated a bitter partisan divide. In later years, she was a fierce adversary of Trump, twice leading his impeachment and stunning Washington in 2020 when she ripped up a copy of his speech to the
RSS