Japan needs to boost its military with a “sense of urgency and crisis,” its defense minister said, as a new government assessment again highlighted growing risks from China, North Korea, and Russia.

Japan is already boosting military spending and security cooperation in Asia, deploying missile launchers to outer islands, moving to acquire “counterstrike” capabilities, and easing rules on weapons exports.

But Japan’s Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi said in a preface to the annual defense white paper that it was “imperative that Japan further reinforce and transform its defense capabilities with a stronger sense of urgency and crisis than ever before.”

In the Asia-Pacific “not only are China and North Korea further strengthening their military capabilities, China–Russia and Russia–North Korea are also reinforcing their cooperation,” he added.

The new white paper said China was “intensifying its activities” in the region around Japan, “extending beyond the so-called first island chain to the second island chain.”

It listed a series of incidents in 2025, including activities by Chinese aircraft carriers and the “unusual close approach” by Chinese aircraft to Japanese planes in two incidents in June and July.

Japanese jets scrambled 595 times in the year to March 31, 2026, including 366 sorties against Chinese aircraft and 214 for Russian planes.

Koizumi also said that he and U.S. counterpart Pete Hegseth had “exchanged candid views” on the “unwavering” U.S.–Japan alliance, while also increasing security cooperation with the Philippines, Australia, and South Korea to realize a “Free and Open Indo-Pacific.”

“As the security environment becomes increasingly and rapidly severe, what is required now is to strengthen resilience against crises all across the entire Indo-Pacific region,” Koizumi said.

“In order to do so, Japan will build and expand multilayered networks among allies and like-minded countries and enhance interconnectivity with like-minded countries and others in every area.”

China has expressed alarm at what it sees as a return to “new militarism” by Japan, with relations worsening since comments about Taiwan last year by new Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi.

Koizumi’s warning comes after Japan’s National Intelligence Bureau held its first meeting last week. Japan’s accelerated military transformation and the creation of new intelligence capabilities signal a broader shift toward self-reliant security strategies, as U.S. allies increasingly prepare for a more contested era of hybrid warfare, regional power competition, and uncertainty over long-term American security commitments. (AFP/EIR)