The following report is by US News:
China on Thursday signaled plans to retaliate militarily to new security initiatives between Japan and the U.S., warning that the allies’ accelerated cooperation will create new threats for themselves in the region.
Citing a Chinese military analyst, the English-language Global Times newspaper warned that if Japan continued dramatic increases in military spending and new security postures coordinated with the U.S. – particularly with regard to Taiwan – then the Chinese military “is sure to take countermeasures, including holding more exercises and patrols in international waters and airspace around Japan.”
It cited another analyst who said the new partnership “actually puts Japan in a riskier and more sacrificial position” in the region.
Though not a direct mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party, the paper is aligned with its views. U.S. officials and analysts believe it often publishes what officials in Beijing choose not to say publicly.
The new threats, piling on to more subtle public warnings from Chinese military officials, come as the U.S. and Japan this week begin unveiling results of a new initiative to better prepare to confront Beijing militarily – especially in light of China’s stated ambition to seize control of the independent nation of Taiwan, which it considers a breakaway province.
Japan’s top diplomatic and military officials beginning Wednesday met in Washington, D.C., with their American counterparts ahead of a high-profile visit by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to the White House on Friday. Known as a “2+2” summit, the group in a press conference at the State Department late in the day praised Japan’s decision to begin breaking from its historically pacifist stance – codified in its constitution since after World War II – and invest in its military to look more like those of other highly developed nations as well as prepare it to take on the increasingly bellicose challenges presented by regional powers, namely China and North Korea.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin as an example announced that the U.S. would reconfigure the 12th Marine Regiment currently based in Okinawa to make it “more lethal, more agile, more capable” in the coming years. The news represented the latest example of ongoing plans the U.S. has reportedly considered in recent weeks to deter but not provoke China, which the administration refers to as America’s main “pacing challenge” in the region.
The news follows massive changes in Japan’s defense footing under its new administration, including a radical new security strategy that invests 2% of its gross domestic product in the military over the next five years with a particular focus on developing weapons and tactics appropriate for a conflict with China.
Wang Wenbin, a spokesman for China’s Foreign Ministry, using carefully crafted language warned in a press conference early Thursday that any new forms of cooperation between the two powers should not harm the interests of any other countries in the Indo-Pacific or the region’s current peace and stability.
Analysts similarly expect that the new initiative orchestrated by Washington and Tokyo will, predictably, enrage Beijing and elicit a dramatic response.
Any increase in Japan’s military strength will thus be met with concerns from its neighbors by fundamentally changing the security status quo in the region, with China and North Korea being the most upset.
Private intelligence firm RANE concluded in a new analysis note, published after Wednesday’s announcements
However it added that initial Chinese retaliation would likely begin economically with attempts to isolate China’s massive markets from Japanese products.
It notes, though, that Japan is currently the only country in the world that has formally given up the right to declare war and that a change in that footing will both address and contribute to a changing security dynamic in the region.
By increasing its defense budget and military capabilities, Japan is not necessarily preparing for an imminent war, but rather ensuring it can be more proactive in enforcing its maritime territory against North Korean (and Chinese) threats without needing the United States’ sign-off on every action, like every other ‘normal’ sovereign nation.
Up until recently, China and North Korea were not threats to Japanese sovereignty, as China was not developed enough, and North Korea was primarily concerned with the potential for a peninsular conflict.
Current Japanese leadership is able to use the increasing threats from North Korea and the potential for Tokyo to be pulled into a Taiwanese conflict to justify the increase in defense spending, whereas those threats did not exist before.
According to RANE
AUTHOR COMMENTARY
Gerald Celente of The Trends Journal has a saying: “When all else fails they take you to war.”
It is unsurprising that all main parties involved here – U.S., Japan, and China – all are suffering massive economic problems and are on the verge of total collapse, namely the U.S. and Japan the most. Therefore a war will surely spur some spending and production at the cost of bloodshed, no matter how many lives have to be taken in order to sustain the bottom line.
I am not saying that war will breakout over there concerning Taiwan, but Biden and the military goons have repeatedly said they will do whatever to defend it. I suspect this to be just posturing on the part of senile Biden, but if anything, the U.S. will slap “sanctions” on China if this goes anywhere, only hurting us and those involved (mirroring the situation with Ukraine); on top of China’s restrictions of their own, which they could simply shutdown the factories and embargo all exports. America would crumble in a matter of days without a single bullet being fired.
Again, I have no way of knowing if it will breakout, but I would honestly just assume that it will and be prepared for that real threat.
[6] And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. [7] For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. [8] All these are the beginning of sorrows. Matthew 24:6-8
[7] Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges? who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock? [8] Say I these things as a man? or saith not the law the same also? [9] For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen? [10] Or saith he it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written: that he that ploweth should plow in hope; and that he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope. (1 Corinthians 9:7-10).
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