Tokyo: To give a simultaneous blow to China and Russia, Japan has increased friendship with its old enemy America. Kyodo News Agency has made a big disclosure quoting Japanese government sources. The agency said Tokyo and Washington have drafted a joint plan. Under this draft, a military base will be built on the Nansei island chain in the southwest of Japan. It will be used to deal with emergencies in Taiwan. In such a situation, the tension between China and Russia can increase.
According to the report, a meeting of foreign and defense ministers is being held between the US and Japan on January 7 in Washington. A formal consensus on this plan is likely to be made in this meeting. Under the plan, “US troops will initially build a temporary base on Nansei Island (also known as Ryukyu Island). It will be the first base in a chain of islands heading southwest towards Taiwan. Out of these 200 islands, about 40 islands have been kept on the list of potential sites.
This report also comes a day after the increase in the defense budget of the Japanese Parliament. This is the first time Japan has allowed such a large increase in the defense budget since the Second World War. It remains to be seen how much pressure the Japanese government exerts for a constitutional amendment to the war. Through this amendment, Japan would get the right to start a war.
Seven decades ago America imposed this pacifist constitution on Japan. This constitution was prepared by a small team of General MacArthur of America in just one week. General MacArthur was the supreme commander of the Allied Powers.
The militarization of Japan is a fact of modern history. The Great Depression affected Japan in a very bad way and promoted the rise of militarism there. Simply put, Japan wanted to expand itself to capture more natural resources. There are many similarities and differences between then and now.
The main difference is that Japan was unhappy with the wave of global modernization by Western powers in the early 20th century, which enslaved many countries and whose effects were felt in Asia.
Beijing and Moscow don’t seem overly concerned with Japan’s move, but they are keeping an eye on it, as the geopolitical reality is that if Japan is militarized, it will be linked to the US’s anti-China and anti-Russian “hind-eight” Prashant” strategy.
