Tensions between Japan and China have

recently ratcheted up to the highest

level they've been since the end of the

Second World War. The current crisis

between them began on the 7th of

November 2025 when Japan's new prime

minister say Takaii was asked point

blank in the Japanese diet what might

prompt Japan to exercise the policy of

collective self-defense. Now, it's

important for you to understand the

context behind this particular phrase in

Japanese politics. Japan's constitution

drafted after the end of the Second

World War under Article 9 explicitly

reads that the Japanese people forever

renounce war as a sovereign right of the

nation and the threat or use of force as

means of settling international

disputes. It has been under this

constitution after the horrors Japan

experienced during World War II that the

country has remained a strictly pacifist

nation for decades now. and why modern

Japan's armed forces have never been

referred to as an army or a navy, but as

self-defense forces instead, whose

mission has always been restricted to

the defense of Japanese territory itself

in the event that Japan comes under a

hostile foreign attack first. But in

2015, spearheaded by then Prime Minister

Shinszo AB, the Japanese government

significantly reinterpreted Article 9 of

its constitution with a new security law

that enables the self-defense forces to

exercise collective self-defense as

well. In essence, granting Japan the

legal authority to deploy military force

abroad if it is in the defense of an

ally that has come under attack and if

it is judged to be necessary for the

Japanese state's own survival. So, fast

forward back to the 7th of November in

2025 when Japan's new prime minister say

Takaii was asked directly by the diet

what scenario exactly might prompt Japan

to actually invoke the policy of

collective self-defense. Her public

answer was that if China initiated an

armed blockade or invasion of Taiwan, it

could constitute a survival threatening

situation for Japan. With survival

threatening situation being the

allimportant phrase she used here

because it implied that she would

trigger Japan's right to collective

self-defense in the event of a Taiwan

invasion or blockade scenario that would

see the self-defense forces deployed

into the war against China, even if

Japanese territory itself was not

attacked directly first. It was truly a

breathtaking and unprecedented statement

in Japanese politics. The first time

ever that [music] a sitting Japanese

prime minister suggested publicly during

a formal session in parliament that

Japan might intervene militarily against

China during a Taiwan conflict. And

China's response since then has been a

mix of shock and utter fury. The very

next day after Tekki's remarks, China's

console general in Osaka responded with

particular anger. writing on X directly

addressed to the prime minister herself,

quote, "If you stick that filthy neck

where it doesn't belong, it's going to

get sliced off. Are you ready for that?"

End quote. The post has since been

deleted, but further diplomatic attacks

from Beijing have followed. The Chinese

have consistently demanded that Taiichi

retract her statement, which he has

consistently refused to do. China

provocatively flew a drone between

Taiwan and the southernmost Japanese

island of Yonuguni that resulted in the

Japan Air Self-Defense Forces scrambling

fighter [music] jets. And then even more

provocatively, they sent four Chinese

Coast Guard vessels into the territorial

waters around the disputed Senkaku

Islands, a small group of uninhabited

islands administered by Japan, but

claimed by China. Beijing has also

issued advisories warning against

Chinese students from studying in Japan

or tourists from visiting Japan, which

the Japanese government has estimated

might end up causing more than 14

billion dollars worth of economic damage

to Japan alone. China has also banned

the importation of all seafood coming

from Japan. And they've recently begun

shutting down and blocking Japanese

firms and other culture from the country

as well as most embodied by a viral

event that took place on the 29th of

November when Makiatsuki, a Japanese

singer who was performing her well-known

theme song for the anime One Piece on

stage in Shanghai, was forced off of the

stage by Chinese officials in the middle

of her performance after the ban on

Japanese cultural content came more

strictly into force. And all the while,

Tekkai has continually refused to

apologize or amend her statements in any

way. And not only is Japan busy

reinterpreting what kinds of military

engagements they can get involved in

from a legal perspective, they're also

busy backing their words up with

enormous new amounts of funding and arms

for the Japanese self-defense forces as

well. Frightened by Russia's invasion of

Ukraine and China's increasing hostility

towards Taiwan, Japan announced back in

2022 that they would be doubling their

annual military spending from 1% of GDP

to 2% of GDP by no later than 2027,

equaling NATO military spending targets

for the first time in Japan's history.

Shortly after she became prime minister

in late 2025, Sai Takayichi announced

that the timeline would be sped up by a

year early to reach 2% of GDP on

military spending by 2026. Meaning that

next year, Japan will probably achieve a

defense budget [music] of around $80

billion a year, putting it into the same

ballpark as the UK and near the top five

highest military spenders on the planet.

A truly titanic shift for a country that

even just five years ago was so well

known for its commitment to pacifism

that not a single soldier in the

self-defense forces has ever been killed

in action by an enemy in the entire

history of Japan since the end of World

War II. But this shift in Japan's

military posture has been a long time

coming. And to China, Japan's rapidly

increasing military spending and its

comments about intervening against them

over Taiwan are triggering deep and

painful historical memories and

experiences from their past. Because

Japan and China have a long,

complicated, and contentious history. As

the two most preeminent powers in East

Asia, they maintained relations with one

another for thousands of years. But in

the late 19th century, Japan was able to

rapidly industrialize and remain

politically united and centralized,

which enabled it to take advantage of a

historically weak and vulnerable China

that was still pre-industrial and

increasingly politically fragmented and

decentralized. Japan, more than any

other single nation, contributed the

most to China's so-called century of

humiliation, and they inflicted more

than 50 years of continuous pain and

suffering on them. It began with the

first SinoJapanese war between 1894 and

1895 [music]

in which Japan attacked China and

emerged decisively victorious removing

Korea from the Chinese sphere of

influence and forcing the Chinese to

seed Taiwan to Japan which then remained

a Japanese colony for the next half

century. Then a few years later in 1900,

Japanese troops participated in the

suppression of the Boxer Rebellion in

China that resulted in tens of thousands

of deaths. Following the outbreak of the

First World War in 1914, the Japanese

issued a series of secret demands to

China that came to be known as the 21

demands, which essentially demanded that

the whole of China subordinate itself

into becoming a Japanese protectorate.

It only failed after China published the

extreme demands and sparked outrage by

the British and Americans who pressured

the Japanese to back down. Later in

1931, the Imperial Japanese Army staged

a false flag attack that came to be

known as the Mukden incident, which they

used as their pretext to launch an

invasion into Manuria, which they

subsequently conquered and where they

established the puppet state of Manchu

Quo over in 1932. Afterwards, the

Japanese government encouraged a vast

settler colonial project in Manuria to

alter the region's demographics that saw

more than 1 million Japanese settlers

migrate into the territory by 1945.

Small clashes between the Japanese and

Chinese armies continued on for years

until they outright exploded in a

fullscale warfare in 1937 when Japan

launched a fullscale invasion across the

rest of China with a goal of outright

conquest. The ensuing second

SinoJapanese war that lasted for the

next 8 years and spilled over into World

War II ultimately became one of the

deadliest conflicts in all of human

history, [music]

resulting in the deaths of around 20

million people, the vast majority of

whom were simply Chinese civilians.

Throughout the war, Japanese forces

perpetrated an almost endless list of

war crimes and atrocities against the

Chinese people. But the two most

infamous examples that continues to

strain relations between the two

countries today were the non-jing

massacre and unit 731. Arguably two of

the worst things that human beings have

ever done to one another at any point in

our history. After Japanese forces took

control over the Chinese city of Nanjing

near the end of 1937, then the capital

city, they engaged in a brutal 6-w weekl

long rampage of mass murder, looting,

arson, torture, and abuse directed

against the city's Chinese inhabitants.

Newer estimates believe that up to

200,000 [music] Chinese people within

Nanjing were killed by the Japanese army

during this 6-week massacre. A rate of

killing that is comparable to the Rwanda

genocide that would take place later in

the 1990s.

Meanwhile, Unit 731 was a top secret

research facility that was operated by

the Imperial Japanese Army in occupied

Manuria throughout the war.

>> [music]

>> Unit 731 conducted large-scale research

into chemical and biological weapons,

including brutal and lethal experiments

conducted on live human beings [music]

who are usually abducted Chinese

civilians. Unit 731's victims were

subjected to deliberate deadly disease

[music] infections, chemical weapons and

explosives testings, live limb

amputations, and live vivisections

performed under no anesthesia so as not

to interfere with the potential results.

[music] organ harvesting, cold exposure,

and hypothermia testing, hypobaric

chamber testing, and other brutal

experiments that are collectively

believed to have killed around 14,000

[music]

of humanity's most unfortunate ever

victims. Not a single person who ever

entered into Unit 731's research testing

is known to have survived. While the

biological weapons they developed led

directly to the deaths of at least

another 200,000 more people across

Chinese villages and cities through the

Japanese army's deliberate contamination

of water supplies and agricultural

lands. The legacy of these atrocities in

Japan's 50-year war on China continue to

negatively impact relations between the

two countries today. and it frames the

historical context in which China often

views Japan's modern military expansion

that's currently taking place. At the

end of the Second World War, when Japan

was thoroughly defeated and occupied by

the United States, the country was made

to surrender all of its conquered

territories back to China, including

Taiwan, and was made to adopt its new

pacifist constitution that renounced its

right to war and the use of force

forever, effectively resulting in

Japan's demilitarization.

[music] After suffering through millions

of their own dead over the course of the

Second World War, including the atomic

bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the

Japanese public was left traumatized and

wary of war as well, easing their

transition towards pacifism in the

post-war years. Without the legal right

to ever go to war again, Japan also

agreed to become incorporated into the

American security umbrella with the 1950

security treaty, [music] which

guarantees that the US will defend

Japan's territory in the event of a

hostile attack in exchange for Japan

granting the US the right to base large

numbers of military forces within their

country. This arrangement at the time

was mutually beneficial as it enabled

Japan to outsource all of their defense

needs to America, which allowed them to

fully concentrate on rebuilding and then

developing their economy in the post-war

years instead. While it enabled America

to control a huge and strategically

valuable rear base of military

operations in East Asia that it has been

able to use to great effect during wars

in Korea and Vietnam and [music] in

buttressing the position of Taiwan

against China. And yet, relations

between Japan and China continued

remaining tense [music] despite Japan's

new commitment of pacifism. After the

end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949,

Japan continued recognizing the Republic

of China's government based on Taiwan

and didn't normalize the relations with

the People's Republic of China for years

until 1972.

After the Korean War broke out in 1950,

the US encouraged Japan to establish an

armed police force that eventually

evolved into the Self-Defense Forces by

1954. But for decades, as Japan relied

on the US military for defense and

focused all of its energies on

rebuilding and then expanding their

economy, the growth of the self-defense

forces was kept at a minimum. [music] It

was organized to be the bare minimum

force necessary to defend the Japanese

home islands themselves from an outside

attack. And so they resisted acquiring

any and all offensive capabilities for

decades and continued only being

allocated a minimal budget. By the late

1970s, an informal cap on the

Self-Defense Forces budget of 1% of GDP

per year had come into effect that would

last all the way up until our modern age

in the 2020s. After the end of the Cold

War, Japan's position initially seemed

to feel even more secure with the

collapse of the Soviet Union and their

continued privileged position within the

US security umbrella. And so, no major

push to expand the role of the

self-defense forces would come for

another generation. But then all of a

sudden, beginning in the 2010s, [music]

Japan's geopolitical situation would

begin growing increasingly precarious

due to four major developing reasons

that are pushing the country to now

re-evaluate things. The first reason has

been an increasingly bold and aggressive

North Korea on their doorstep that's now

armed with nuclear weapons. North Korea

conducted their first successful nuclear

weapons test in 2006. And since then,

they've conducted six additional nuclear

weapons tests with the most recent one

reaching a threshold of 160 kilotons

worth of explosive power. 10 times the

power of the Hiroshima atomic bomb. The

Stockholm International Peace Research

Institute, which tracks the nuclear

inventories of countries from around the

world, currently estimates that as of

January 2025, the North Koreans possess

around 50 active nuclear weapons and

have enough file material to produce

another 40 more in due time. They've

also likely already acquired the

capability to mount one of these nuclear

weapons to ballistic missiles that

[music] can impact and destroy any city

in the Japanese home islands, making

North Korea an existential threat to

Japan's own survival for the first time.

The North Koreans are also known to

possess around a thousand ballistic

missiles, hundreds of which have the

range and capability to impact targets

in Japan with conventional warheads as

well. While multiple North Korean

missile tests have begun flying directly

over Japanese territory itself beginning

in August of 2017 with further flyovers

taking place in September 2017, October

2022, and January 2025, further putting

Japan on edge. Even worse, North Korea

has been growing increasingly closer to

Russia and more militarily capable since

the invasion of Ukraine began, too. To

date, North Korea is the only UN member

state other than Russia itself to have

formally recognized Russia's conquests

and annexations in eastern Ukraine.

North Korea has provided Russia with

millions of artillery shells for the war

effort. And most provocatively of all,

they've even deployed thousands of their

own soldiers to fight against the

Ukrainians during the Kursk offensive in

Russia in 2024. While recent Ukrainian

intelligence released in November of

2025 appears to suggest that North

Korean troops are active in the Russian

occupied parts of the Zaparisia region

of Ukraine as well, potentially making

North Korea an active belligerent in

Ukraine's invasion as well. North Korea

and Russia have signed a renewed

military alliance pledging the two to

the other's defense. [music] While the

Russians are known to be providing the

North Koreans with many of their most

advanced military technologies in

exchange for all of the support the

North Koreans are giving them in

Ukraine. The end result is that with

increasing military technology and

realworld modern battlefield experience

in [music] Ukraine, the North Korean

army is growing more capable and

dangerous while its nuclear arsenal

continues to pose an existential threat

to Japan's very existence. [music]

The second, and probably the most

important reason, has been an

increasingly powerful and assertive

China. [music] Between 2013 and 2022,

while US military spending only

increased by 2.7%,

Chinese military spending rocketed up by

more than 63% over the same time frame.

As of 2024, the US continues to maintain

the highest military spending in the

world at $997 billion a year compared to

China's $314 billion a year. But while

America's military is engaged all around

the world, [music] China's military is

only engaged regionally in East Asia.

Beginning in 2010, as China's ambitions

began growing with its power, China has

also increasingly begun clashing with

Japan on a number of territorial

disputes that had remained dormant for

decades beforehand. Between 2010 and

2012, the two countries clashed bitterly

over the status of the Senkaku Islands,

a small group of uninhabited rocks that

[music] Japan controls, but which China

claims and calls the Dao Yu Islands

instead. In 2012, the Japanese

government purchased three of these

disputed islands from their private

owner, which triggered huge [music]

anti-Japanese protests in China, who saw

it as a Japanese attempt to establish

their sovereignty over them. China

attempted to pressure Japan by

temporarily restricting the export of

rare earth minerals to them. The first

time that China seriously weaponized its

trade relationship with Japan over a

diplomatic dispute. At around the

[music] same time, China unilaterally

issued an extended maritime EEEZ claim

in the East China Sea that significantly

extended into Japan's zoneclaimed EEZ

area, introducing a major maritime

dispute between the two countries that

still remains in place today. Then in

2013, adding on even further pressure,

China unilaterally declared an extension

of their air defense identification zone

across the East China Sea as well,

incorporating the Skaku Islands and

significantly overlapping with the air

defense identification zone claimed by

Japan, escalating the conflict between

them even more. China's growing arsenal

of missiles has also been of a

particular concern to the Japanese. As

of 2024, the Pentagon believes that

China possesses around 400

intercontinental ballistic missiles, 500

intermediate range ballistic missiles,

1,300 medium-range ballistic missiles,

900 short-range ballistic missiles, and

400 ground launched cruise missiles.

Meaning that, in other words, China now

possesses hundreds upon hundreds of

missiles at its disposal that can reach

the Japanese home islands in the event

of a conflict. The point was delivered

by the Chinese profoundly in 2022

[music]

when then US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi

made an official state visit to Taiwan,

after which China initiated large-scale

military exercises encircling Taiwan

that included multiple ballistic

missiles being fired directly into

Japan's maritime EEZ just south of the

Japanese island of Yonaguni. clearly

illustrating China's capability to

strike Japanese territory or warships if

they so desire. China and Japan alike

both understand that the status of

Taiwan going forward is a poor national

interest of both of them. For Japan, a

Chinese takeover of Taiwan would simply

be geopolitically disastrous. [music]

China would break the continuous link in

the so-called first island chain. the

line of islands through Japan, the Ryuku

Islands, Taiwan, the Philippines, and

Indonesia that box the Chinese coast in

and contain the Chinese Navy's ability

to break out into the open Pacific.

[music] Since the waters to the west of

the line are relatively shallow and

easier to detect submarine activity in

than the deeper waters to the east of

the line, all of the countries along the

First Island chain, from Japan to South

Korea to Taiwan and down to the

Philippines, are staunch US allies. But

with a successful Chinese takeover of

Taiwan, the chain would be broken and

the Chinese Navy would finally be able

to access the greater Pacific

unobstructed. From their control of

Taiwan, China could further increase

their pressure on the Skaku Islands

dispute and their disputed maritime and

airspace areas with Japan that have

serious implications on potential

offshore natural gas reserves in the

area as well. And potentially worst of

[music] all, Japan's critical sea lines

of communication would become more

exposed to their historic rival than

they'd ever been before. Japan is

enormously overdependent on maritime

trade to survive. Nearly 90% of Japan's

energy imports transit into the country

through vulnerable maritime choke points

like the waters near Taiwan. If these

sea lanes are compromised during a

conflict exploding over Taiwan, Japan

holds a strategic petroleum reserve that

contains 232 days worth of net oil

imports. But they only have a strategic

LNG reserve that holds just 19 days

worth of net LG imports. If the war

blockade over Taiwan lasts longer than

40 days and keeps the sea lanes

compromised, Japan would begin facing

strategic paralysis and an economy that

would begin grinding down without the

energy imports they need to continue

functioning. Rerouted energy imports

away from around Taiwan would add both

time and cost to them. [music] And

there's no guarantee that China wouldn't

just take advantage of their control of

Taiwan afterwards to continue

interfering with them [music] to apply

even more pressure on Japan's economy

later. These are the reasons why Japan

has long maintained a policy of keeping

the Indo-Pacific region both free and

open. A term that they themselves first

coined before the US adopted the same

policy by the same name under the Obama

administration later. There's also a

concern that no matter what Japan does,

they won't be able to stay out of a

Chinese invasion or blockade of Taiwan

for long. The island of Yanuguni, the

southwesternmost island of Japan, is

merely 110 km away from Taiwan. As such,

it's an extremely important location to

control for both China and the US during

a potential conflict scenario. Yonauni

and the rest of the Japanese islands in

the Ryu Hyu chain stretching up to

Okinawa will be vital for both sides to

[music] control as they'll be critical

for establishing aerial supremacy and

logistics routes for US forces

resupplying Taiwanese forces or

counterattacking Chinese positions. The

islands are a major component of the US

fish hook underwater sensor network

that's critical for America's ability to

detect Chinese submarines atte

bulk of their own military forces

stationed in Japan nearby in Okinawa

where some 30,000 US troops are

permanently forward deployed at. If the

US interveneed during a Taiwan conflict,

even if Japan itself didn't, China would

be likely to at least use their missiles

to bombard American bases and assets

[music] in Okinawa. And under extreme

scenarios, they might even attempt to

launch amphibious operations to try and

seize the southwestern most Japanese

islands between Yanuguni and Makushima

in order to secure their northern flank

around Taiwan against potential US

reinforcements and naval and air

operations. Thus, there are major

legitimate reasons why Japan fears that

their territory could come under attack

or even under occupation and their

economy threatened by a Chinese assault

on Taiwan. There was also the risk that

military action taken by China in the

Taiwan Strait or military action taken

by North Korea in the Korean Peninsula

could encourage escalation by the other

within their respective theaters.

[music] China might encourage North

Korea to ratchet up hostilities in the

Korean Peninsula in order to distract

and tie down US and allied assets away

from Taiwan. And even if they don't do

that, a full-blown Chinese attack on

Taiwan that draws in US assets would

inevitably present an opportunity for

North Korea to take advantage of the

distraction and increase escalation on

their own accord in Korea. Thus, there

is a major fear for Japan and America

that they could end up facing a

two-front war in East Asia under the

worst case scenario [music]

with conflicts breaking out in the

Taiwan Strait and the Korean Peninsula

almost simultaneously.

Even if none of that happens, though,

the mere chance that North Korea might

escalate in the Korean Peninsula during

a Taiwan conflict will force Japan and

the US to hold at least some of their

resources in reserve rather than being

able to focus everything they have

against China alone.

Okay. Now, the third reason why Japan is

reconsidering the Self-Defense Force's

modern role is the Trump

administration's wavering commitments to

defend US allies, including Japan. Trump

has publicly suggested that he wouldn't

send US forces to protect NATO states in

Europe coming under attack whom he felt

had not been paying their fair share

towards defense. And he's openly

criticized the long-standing US Japan

security treaty that's been in effect

since 1950. As recently as March of

2025, Trump plainly stated that he felt

the security treaty with Japan was

unfair and a bad deal. Because while it

pledges the US to come to the defense of

Japan during an attack, it doesn't

pledge Japan to come to the US's defense

during an attack in the other direction.

Japanese officials were quick to point

out, of course, that the treaty is also

what enables the US to station tens of

thousands of their troops in Japan

across dozens of bases. The Japan

ultimately bears the burden of hosting.

This has led to fears in Japan that the

US might not actually be serious about

really assisting them during an

emergency scenario around Taiwan. And

knowing that the US military is globally

engaged all around the world, while the

Chinese military is only regionally

engaged in East Asia, Japan has felt the

pressure to increase their own military

spending to help out and compensate or

to hedge. Then the fourth and final

reason for Japan's remilitarization was

the precedent that was set by Russia's

full-scale invasion of Ukraine that was

launched in early 2022, showing clearly

that massive wars of conquest launched

by one state against another wasn't a

relic of the past. Only months after the

invasion began, then Japanese Prime

Minister Fumio Kashida warned that

Ukraine today may well [music] be East

Asia tomorrow. While polls showed that

around 90% of the Japanese public

believed that their country needed to do

more to prepare for a potential Chinese

invasion of Taiwan. And thus, because of

all these various threats, Japan has

felt compelled to begin acting, evolving

from the reinterpretation of the

Constitution's Article 9 in 2015 that

has enabled Japan to act in collective

self-defense of its allies who fall

under attack. And then Japan's

announcement within months of Russia's

invasion of Ukraine in [music] 2022,

that they would double their defense

spending to 2% of GDP by 2027 and

recently expedited to happen by 2026.

[music]

In February of 2025, for the first time

ever, the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense

Forces provocatively sailed a destroyer

directly through the Taiwan Strait in

order to send a message, which triggered

a spokesperson with [music] China's

Ministry of National Defense to say,

quote, "China respects the navigation

rights of all countries under

international law, but firmly opposes

any country creating trouble in the

Taiwan Strait, infringing upon China's

sovereignty and security and sending

wrong signals to the Taiwan Independent

Separatist [music] Forces. End quote.

And that incident was even before

current Prime Minister Sonai Takai's

remarks, [music] which suggested that a

Chinese attack on Taiwan would be

interpreted by Japan as a trigger of

collective self-defense [music] and

would lead directly to an armed Japanese

intervention. So, what exactly is Japan

planning to acquire and do with its

double defense budget? First, and

probably most controversially of all,

Japan plans to finally equip the

self-defense forces with strike

capabilities like long range cruise

[music] missiles. Japan has since

declared their intent to purchase 400

US-made Tomahawk cruise missiles, which

can accurately strike targets up to 2400

km away, and which can be equipped on

Japan's naval assets like destroyers and

submarines, giving the maritime

self-defense forces the ability for the

first time ever to strike targets deep

within the Chinese or North Korean

interiors. This capability was long

considered to be taboo for the

self-defense forces to have. Why, after

all, should constitutionally pacifist

Japan possess these offensive weapons

with such long ranges capable of

striking their enemy's territories

directly? To get around the optics of

this acquisition, Japan likes to use the

term counterstrike capability instead of

strike capability when referring to the

missiles, emphasizing that they won't be

used for preemptive strikes against

their adversaries and will only be used

after Japan itself comes under attack

first. In November of 2025, a Japanese

destroyer arrived in California to pick

up the very first set of these Tomahawk

missiles that they have on order. And

hundreds more of them are soon to

follow, along with several hundred other

domestically produced longrange

anti-ship missiles that are being

developed by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries

called the Type 12 Missile, which will

have a range of about a,000 km. Japan

has also been steadily increasing and

improving their submarine fleet as well.

Back in 2010, when the modern

confrontation with China was just

beginning, Japan only possessed a fleet

of just 16 submarines, but it's grown to

24 of them as of today in 2025.

While all of Japan's submarines so far,

conventionally powered by electric

diesel engines, the newest generation of

Japanese submarines called the TAG class

that was introduced in March of 2022,

are extremely capable machines

nonetheless. [music]

Nicknamed the sea ninjas by the

Japanese, they are very quiet and

excellent for reconnaissance missions

and are capable of covertly deploying

sea mines and launching torpedoes.

They're also expected to be armed with

the US supplied Tomahawk cruise missiles

which will enable them to launch long

range precision counter strikes against

targets thousands of kilometers deep

within the Chinese interior if they

decide to do so. Currently, the Japanese

submarine fleet consists of five of

these modern TAG class subs and 15 older

generation Soryu class subs. But two

more TAG class subs are expected to join

the fleet and become operational by

2027. And it will likely be these seven

modern and quiet subs that the Japanese

maritime self-defense forces would

deploy to the southwestern most Ryuku

Islands during a Taiwan conflict. Where

their mission would be to hunt and

attack Chinese submarines attempting to

break through the first island chain and

to kill surface warships attempting

amphibious assaults on them and to

potentially fire counterstrike salvos of

tomahawks at military targets within

China itself. Japan's older generation

of submarines and their surface

warships, meanwhile, would be dedicated

to keeping Japan's sea lines of

communication and imports of oil and LNG

as open and secure as physically

possible through escort missions with

tankers. Japan has also even inquired

about potentially acquiring US

nuclearpowered submarines as well

following recent American agreements to

provide them to other allies in the

Indo-Pacific region like South Korea and

Australia. Japan also intends to use his

double defense spending to acquire no

fewer than 147 F-35 fighter jets from

the United States as well, which will

make Japan the second largest operator

of the F-35 only after the US itself.

The fighters will be capable of being

armed with long range cruise missiles as

well that like the submarines will be

capable of striking targets deep within

the Chinese interior if necessary. 105

of the F-35s on order by Japan will be

conventional models, but notably 42 of

them will be the F-35B short takeoff and

vertical landing model of the fighter.

[music] This is important because these

are the F-35s that are being planned by

the Japanese to be deployed to their

upgraded Isumo class helicopter

carriers. Japan possesses two of these

types of small aircraft carriers, the

Isumo and the Kaga, which were of course

originally designed to carry

helicopters. But now, Japan is using the

money they're pouring into the military

to retrofit and upgrade both of these

carriers to enable them to each

transport and launch up to 12 of the

F-35Bs at a time, which together will

give Japan one of the strongest power

projection capabilities in the world and

will enable them to fight more

effectively for aerial supremacy in hot

spots like the East and South China

Seas. When they're completed around

2027, the Isumo and the Kaga will

notably become the first Japanese naval

vessels to operate fixedwing aircraft

since the days of the Imperial Japanese

Navy during World War II. Many of the

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Type 12

missiles are planned to be stationed on

the island of Kiushu by the spring of

2026 as well, which will give Japan

extensive missile coverage from the

safety of the home islands across all of

the Ryuku island chain [music] extending

across the southwest. And across the

parts of the island chain from Okinawa

to Yonaguni, the Japanese are planning

even more preparations. The island of

Yanuguni closest to Taiwan is growing

increasingly militarized. The Japanese

have already set up a surveillance radar

facility on the island and deployed an

electronic warfare unit there in 2024

that'll be used to jam enemy

communications and guidance systems

around Taiwan's northern flank. And in

2025, they confirmed that they'll

shortly be deploying batteries of

medium-range surfaceto-air missiles to

the island as well, presumably to help

guard against Chinese aircraft and

drones that might attempt attacks from

this direction. The island of Ishigaki,

further to the east, is being armed with

anti-ship missiles, while Makojima, even

further to the east, is being equipped

with missiles as well, and is getting

transformed into a hub for air

surveillance and ammunition storage

depots that'll be able to be accessed by

Japanese and American amphibious warfare

units for counterattacks, presumably

coming down the chain from the principal

US military bases on Okinawa. Beginning

in November of 2025, as the crisis

between Japan and China [music]

continued escalating, the US Marines

were observed to begin conducting

exercises moving supplies like fuel and

ammunition from Okinawa to Yonauni,

presumably to simulate establishing a

forward operating base there. While the

Japanese themselves have also begun

training and creating a new amphibious

rapid deployment brigade that's based on

Kiushu that is being modeled after the

US Marine Corps and being tasked with a

mission of recapturing islands in the

Ryuku chain the night fall beneath

Chinese occupation in the event of a

full-scale conflict within the city of

Oida on Kiushu. The Japanese are

currently building four new large

ammunition depots that will house

anti-ship and ground attack missiles,

positioning still more assets nearby to

the Ryuku Islands in the event of a

contingency. Japan is also expanding its

abilities to evacuate their citizens in

the event of a full-scale war in the

Taiwan Strait. If the worst comes to

pass and the southwestern Ryukyu Islands

become a war zone, Japan will seriously

have to consider the prospect of

evacuating tens of thousands of the

island's Japanese residents to safety

far away back on the main islands. And

so the maritime self-defense forces have

to be adequately prepared to carry that

mission out. And while it's not being

actively considered yet, it's always a

possibility that eventually the Japanese

might calculate that the time has

finally arrived to acquire their own

independent nuclear weapons arsenal as

well in order to guarantee maximum

deterrence. Japan possesses the

technology, resources, and technical

expertise required to likely be able to

build a functioning nuclear weapon in

less than a single year's time if they

really put their mind to it. The only

things that have so far prevented them

from doing so have been their own taboo

against nuclear weapons, US opposition,

and the US security guarantees that puts

them under their nuclear umbrella.

Anyway, but in the event that those

things change, especially the US

security guarantees, the Japan would

almost certainly acquire their own

nuclear weapon rapidly to guarantee

deterrence against their nuclear armed

adversaries in China and North Korea and

potentially Russia, too. Japan has seen

the president of Ukraine, who

surrendered their nuclear weapons in

exchange for security assurances, only

to become invaded and face a war of

conquest fewer than 30 years later. In

the event of a Taiwan conflict, Japan

could conceivably respond in one of four

different ways with varying levels of

escalation and risk. [music] In one

scenario, Japan might choose to take a

strictly defensive stance, declining to

trigger its security law for collective

self-defense [music] and choosing

instead to focus on surveillance and

missile defense over the Ryuku Islands

and evacuating its citizens if and when

necessary. This approach might keep

Japan out of the conflict, but it would

inevitably cause great harm to Japan's

relationship with the United States.

Under a second scenario, Japan could

take a slightly more aggressive approach

and provide logistical support to

American forces in the conflict,

allowing the US to access fuel and

ammunition depots, utilize their bases

for air and naval operations, and using

their maritime self-defense forces to

keep the sea lines of communication

open. Under this scenario, the

self-defense forces would still at least

be trying to avoid direct conflict with

China, but China might still come to see

Japan as heavily assisting the American

war effort, which might expose Japanese

territory to retaliatory attacks and

still drag them into the war anyway.

Under a third and much more aggressive

scenario, Japan could simply choose to

invoke its right to collective

self-defense by declaring an assault on

Taiwan a survivalthreatening crisis for

them. but still try and avoid direct

combat around Taiwan itself. Instead,

the Japanese self-defense forces could

focus on safeguarding the Ryuku Islands

by intercepting Chinese aircraft,

drones, missiles, submarines, and ships

attempting to attack or break through

them. While their warships could escort

American naval vessels through critical

maritime choke points nearby Taiwan,

like the Makco Strait in the north and

the Bosshi Channel in the south. A final

fourth and dramatically more aggressive

option they could take would be to fully

commit the self-defense forces to heavy

combat operations in and around Taiwan

itself, which might involve firing their

new long range cruise missiles to strike

military targets within China itself,

which of course would make Japan a

direct combatant in the war and possibly

incur the full wrath of China in

retaliation.

Regardless of which option Japan might

ultimately choose to take if and when a

Taiwan contingency actually

materializes, the country also faces

significant domestic problems towards

its remilitarization drive. For one

thing, there's major issues on how

exactly to pay for it. Japan already has

one of the highest national debts in the

world as a percentage of their GDP,

currently standing at around 237%,

nearly double the debt ratio of the

United States. Tacking on even more debt

to pay for the military expansion is a

difficult prospect, which leaves the

unpopular choice of increasing taxes in

the country to pay for it instead. A

politically difficult option since Japan

already has very high tax rates due to

the country's rapidly aging population

and social welfare programs. And

speaking of aging populations, Japan has

a critical shortage of available

manpower to fill their ranks as well.

The numbers of young men in Japan aged

between 18 and 26. The prime age for

military service peaked more than 30

years ago back in 1994 at around 17

million. By 2020, that number of young

military-aged men in the country had

shrunk to only 11 million and it is

projected to further shrink beneath 8

million by 2050. Fewer than half the

numbers of young men available they had

in the 1990s. Low pay, tough work, low

unemployment in the private sector, and

the limited prestige of serving in the

armed forces of a constitutionally

pacifist nation have further discouraged

recruitment among the shrinking pool of

manpower, meaning that the self-defense

forces have missed the recruitment

targets every single year since 2014.

Moreover, the self-defense forces lack

any credible or relevant realworld

combat experience today. The last time

that a Japanese soldier is known to have

been killed in action was back in 1972.

And that guy was a fanatical holdout

from World War II who died in a shootout

with police in the Philippines decades

after the war had already ended. The

self-defense forces themselves have

never once experienced a fatality in

combat in their entire history. Will

they and the Japanese public at large

actually be prepared for potentially

enormous rates of casualties during a

major hot war with China and/or North

Korea? I don't know. But overcoming

these issues will be a significant

hurdle for Japan to overcome.

Neither Japan nor China currently

seeking war with each other. But the

legacy of their shared histories and

their mutual military preparations in

the present are increasingly making each

other nervous, causing a cycle of

increasingly hostile rhetoric and

actions. Xiinping's China is determined

to establish the authority of the

Communist Party over Taiwan. In their

eyes, finally unifying China in the

process and ending the legacy of China's

century of humiliation. If Japan

intervenes, China will see it as nothing

less than a historical showdown like the

last time Japanese forces overran Taiwan

in the late 19th century. [music]

as is already being shown in modern

Chinese propaganda like this example.

They will interpret a Japanese

intervention as a Japanese attempt to

prevent the unification of their

country. While the Japanese will

interpret a Chinese attack on Taiwan as

a dangerous act of aggression that will

threaten their long-term stability and

their citizens lives on the small

Japanese islands nearby. Neither side

wants war, but neither side will be

willing to back down when the stakes are

also this high. In Japan's view, as once

said by the legendary Japanese samurai

Miiamoto Mousashi, it is better to be a

soldier in a garden than a gardener in a

war. In some ways, though, Japan has

been in a hostile confrontation with its

neighbors in East Asia for longer than

most people are probably aware of,

especially when it comes to North Korea.

Though North Korea has repeatedly fired

missiles over Japanese territory since

2017, the North Koreans have also done

much worse than that to the Japanese in

earlier decades. Between 1977 and 1983,

hundreds of Japanese people began

mysteriously disappearing without a

trace, usually along the country's

coastlines. For decades, there were no

clear explanations for all of these

disappearances because they were usually

just ordinary average people. For a long

time, the disappearances were the

subject of various conspiracy theories

among the Japanese public. Some of them

even outlandishly purporting that North

Korea was somehow behind all of them.

Though hardly anybody actually believed

that. That is until decades later in

2002 when Kim Jong-il just outright

confessed to the Japanese prime minister

during a meeting that his country had

indeed secretly abducted at least 13

Japanese citizens in the past and

apologized for them. Since then, the

Japanese government has formally

recognized that at least 17 of their

citizens were abducted by the North

Koreans between 1977 and 1983. Though

independent investigations believe that

the true number is likely in the

hundreds, confirming those once

outlandish sounding conspiracy theories

that had persisted in Japan relating to

the disappearances for decades. These

abductions were an organized program

under the reign of Kiml Sun in North

Korea. The grandfather of the current

country's ruler Kim Jong-un and the

original founder of the Kim dynasty who

personally ruled for nearly 46 years

across the second half of the 20th

century. To this date, Kimmel Sun is

still officially regarded by North

Korea's legal system to be the country's

eternal president. Even though he died

decades ago back in 1994, [music]

he is still heralded as nearly a god in

the country along with his son and

grandson who have both taken over the

country's rule following him. And I

think that understanding him and how he

molded North Korea into the bizarre

necro hereditary dictatorship it is

today is a major lesson in what can

happen with truly unchecked power in the

modern world. And so I made an entire

new documentary exploring the dark world

and life of Kim Ilsung and the most

outlandish things he did while ruling

North Korea for decades in my brand new

original documentary series that I'm

calling Mad Kings, which will take

deeper dives into the terrible personal

lives and erratic policy decisions of

recent megalomaniacal and eccentric

dictators. But because of the inherently

violent and controversial details

surrounding Kiml Sunsung, including

details and depictions of multiple acts

of terrorism that he personally ordered

across the 1980s and '90s, my

documentary investigating his reign,

would never work on YouTube because it

would instantly become demonetized and

age restricted, which means the

YouTube's algorithm that's based around

showing you ads would never actually be

incentivized to show the video to you or

to promote it. I deal with very large

numbers of my videos on YouTube getting

demonetized and age restricted as they

already are, including my recent video

from just last month covering the

ongoing events taking place in Darth

Fur. And that's why I'm uploading all of

my documentaries in Mad Kings, including

this one on Kimmel Sun, exclusively to

Nebula instead. And why signing up to

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Days in Berlin, the most detailed Battle

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one. [music] And as always, thank you so

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