Japan’s Security Focus Shift

When Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi made remarks to the Diet about Taiwan on November 7, 2025, China’s reaction was violent. In fact, in its response Beijing has gone beyond mere words; China has since stepped up its military activities around Japan to up the pressure. Even before Takaichi spoke, the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) had established a three-aircraft-carrier policy and was already more active around Japan. Beijing appears to be using Takaichi’s remarks on Taiwan as a pretext to intensify these moves. Meanwhile, Beijing views Takaichi’s long and relatively close relationship with Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te as representing a bloc promoting Taiwanese independence, and so China is increasing the pressure on Japan accordingly, in the East China Sea and in the waters around Taiwan.

One of the most significant changes in Japan’s security environment over the past year is that Chinese aircraft carrier operations have moved beyond the First Island Chain to expand eastward. A number of research vessels have also been confirmed in the area, and the focus has now shifted to the area between the First and Second Island Chains. Until now, Japan’s security focus has been on the East China Sea, the Taiwan Strait, and the South China Sea. Today, Okinawa and Taiwan are effectively caught between Chinese military forces from both directions. On December 6, 2025, J-15 fighter jets launched from the Chinese aircraft carrier Liaonin intermittently illuminated Japan Air Self-Defense Force F-15s conducting airspace intrusion countermeasures with fire control radar (FCR, a preparatory lock-on status before an attack). This incident also occurred to the east of the First Island Chain.

Japan is currently drafting three security-related documents, which will likely reflect this eastward shift in perspective. Two points are worth noting. The first is that not only have the PLAN’s activities expanded to the area between the First and Second Island Chains, with the First Island Chain being squeezed from both sides, but also the Second Island Chain itself is becoming the next frontier. In response, Japan is now reassessing its defense posture for the region stretching from the Ogasawara Islands (Bonin Islands) to Iwo Jima.

As for the second point, even if the PLAN’s activities extend beyond the First Island Chain, this does not mean it is stepping back in the East China Sea. On the contrary, activities to the west of the First Island Chain in the East China Sea, the Taiwan Strait, and the South China Sea have increased. At the end of December 2025, over 2,000 Chinese fishing vessels suddenly formed a backward-L-shaped formation in the East China Sea and then dispersed. These vessels are thought to have mainly come from Zhejiang Province, and this was the first time an exercise of this scale involving fishing vessels had ever been witnessed. In May 2026, after the U.S.-China Summit, Wu Jau-shieh, Secretary-General of the National Security Council, announced on X, accompanied by a map, that 100 Chinese vessels were operating in the area around the First Island Chain. The picture that emerges is of China deploying forces on both sides of the First Island Chain, while also deploying vessels in large numbers across the East China Sea, the Taiwan Strait, and the South China Sea.

Also significant is the coordination between China and Russia. People’s Liberation Army Air Force activities heading northeast from the East China Sea and beyond the First Island Chain are frequently coordinated with their Russian counterparts. Taken together, Japan is gradually being encircled by the two powers. This in turn demands that Tokyo fundamentally reassess its security posture. Meanwhile, a narrative is taking hold in China that the U.S. and Japan are militarizing, that Taiwan is drifting toward independence, and that Beijing has no choice but to respond in kind. Countering that narrative, alongside China’s broader efforts to alter the status quo, has become one of the central challenges for the United States, Japan, and their allies.