As military tensions between China and Japan reach the highest level in more than a decade, the sparsely populated island of Yonaguni finds itself right on the front lines.
Sitting just 110 kilometers (68 miles) east of Taiwan, Yonaguni marks the tail end of an archipelago stretching north to Japan’s main islands, a distance roughly equivalent to the length of the California coastline. Ever since former US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taipei in 2022 prompted China to fire missiles that landed near Yonaguni, Japan has accelerated plans for its largest military buildup in at least four decades.
Up and down the 160-strong Ryukyu island chain, Japan is quickly putting in place missile batteries, radar towers, ammunition storage sites and other combat facilities. It’s also beginning to deploy major military assets on Kyushu, the southernmost of Japan’s four main islands, including F-35 fighter jets and long-range missiles, as well as expanding its version of the US Marine Corps, known as the Amphibious Rapid Deployment Brigade.
Japan Races to Fortify Southern Islands
The nation’s largest military buildup in decades aims to counter China’s territorial ambitions
Sources: Ministry of Defense, Japan; satellite image from Bing
Note: Bases include camps, air bases, submarine bases and signals-intelligence sites
The race to fortify the islands is raising the stakes of the current spat between Asia’s biggest economies, as Beijing ramps up pressure to force Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi to retract remarks suggesting that Japan might deploy its military if China one day attempts to seize Taiwan. Over the weekend, a Chinese fighter aircraft locked its weapons-targeting radar on Japanese warplanes, showing the risk of miscalculation if tensions persist.
“China’s People’s Liberation Army is undoubtedly building up its ability to force Taiwan into submission,” said Koichi Isobe, a former lieutenant general in Japan’s Ground Self-Defense Force. “Japan, the United States, and other Western countries must show China their strong resolve to oppose any actions that seek to change the status quo.”
Some residents voiced concerns over the dangers of an enhanced military presence, with one saying Takaichi should’ve kept quiet. But others such as Shigeru Yonahara, a 63-year-old car mechanic and town council member, agreed with the Defense Ministry’s position. A few days prior to the meeting, Japan’s military reported that it spotted a suspected Chinese drone near the island.
“Right now we’re defenseless,” he said in an interview. “We need the electronic warfare unit to disable threats like drones.”
Since Takaichi’s remarks triggered a backlash from China, she has repeatedly asserted that Japan hasn’t changed its policy toward Taiwan or made any new commitment on when it might deploy its military. However, her remarks have highlighted how closely the security of Japan and Taiwan are connected.
While Japan maintains a doctrine of strict self-defense, in 2015 the government of then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe oversaw a landmark legal change that allowed the military to aid friendly nations in a situation where Japan’s own survival could also be at stake. Before Takaichi took power in October, Abe and successive leaders had avoided giving specific scenarios under which “collective self-defense” would be applied, aware that doing so might stoke tensions with China.
But in private, government officials and security analysts have long mentioned that one scenario could be an American-led defense of Taiwan, given Japan’s proximity to the island democracy and its own dependence on the US for security. Any prospect that American forces would fail to stop a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would therefore inevitably put Japan’s own security at risk.
Japan would have little choice but to support the US in a conflict regardless of how it is viewed by Tokyo, according to Kyoko Hatakeyama, a former Japanese government analyst who is now a professor of international relations at Niigata University. “If we decline the US request, that would mean the end of the alliance,” she said. “And the United States might not even protect Japan in the case of China’s attack on Japan.”
The military buildup has attracted heated debate in parliament. Last month, the head of Japan’s opposition Communist Party said the government’s defense plans were creating a “missile archipelago.” Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi has rejected that description, saying Japan was deploying its forces in line with other countries. During a recent visit to Yonaguni, he said plans to deploy medium-range surface-to-air missiles on the island were intended to reduce the likelihood of attacks on Japan.
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