East Asian Defense Review

Interesting development in East Asian defense and security news.

• Japan’s GSDF soldiers and U.S. Marines engage in their first joint island defense drills off San Diego in which they retook an island held by enemy forces. As Party Pooper pointed out, this is clearly a practice drill to retake Takeshima/Dokdo!

• Meanwhile, the Russian and Japanese navies are also preparing to hold joint exercises.

• This article states that the Chinese government fuels anti-Japanese sentiment to create unity between Taiwan and China. The article also states that this has yet to succeed.

• Japan is analyzing the risks and benefits of importing oil sands from Canada to meet its energy needs.

• Kim Jong Il is in China, but what is he doing and where is he going? The New York Times has an article here, and EastAsiaWatch is following the reclusive leader, albeit with half a tongue firmly planted in cheek.

• And finally, Strategy Page has a great article on how China is waging information warfare to make people at home and abroad think Japan is a threat. To quote an abridged version:

China is trying to make their people believe that Japan is a military threat to China. One way China does this is to point out that Japan’s military spending is $42 billion a year, compared to $26 billion for China. Japan has responded by pointing out that China has nearly ten times as many troops (2.2 million versus 230,000), and a defense budget of over $30 billion. That’s because many items Japan counts as defense costs, China does not (like R&D, some logistics and transportation items). Moreover, 45 percent of Japan’s defense spending goes to salaries, while less than 20 percent of Chinese spending does, and as much as 10 percent of Japan’s defense budget goes to things like soundproofing the windows of homes near Japanese air bases.

Another vital point is that China has nukes, and Japan does not. Chinese generals will admit to themselves, but not in public, that, man-for-man, Japanese troops are more effective. But not so much that Japan’s armed might could be considered superior to Chinas. While Japan’s defense budget has been shrinking every year since the late 1990s, China’s has been growing. Thus any detailed discussion of the subject, like this one, is forbidden in the Chinese media, because it would clearly show that China’s military power is growing, while Japan’s is not.