China pushed Japan a bit too far....

Thanks for the article Jonathan.

via SCMP.

Pacifist Japan will adopt new defence guidelines next week paving the way for its military to respond more quickly and forcefully to perceived threats from China and North Korea, officials said Thursday.
The government of conservative Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will approve rules intended to help air, land and sea forces work together more effectively in the face of danger, an official from Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) said.
The move comes amid the continuing row between China and Japan over the sovereignty of a small island chain in the East China Sea, a dispute that has escalated over the last year to include military hardware from both sides.
Lawmakers from the ruling bloc on Wednesday endorsed the plan, which would create what it called a “Dynamic Joint Defence Force”, the official said.
“For the first time, we will be able to obtain mobility, or the capability to deploy swiftly in an integrated manner,” Defence Minister Itsunori Onodera said on Thursday.
“When we deploy troops to remote islands... we need to respond with ground, marine and air defence forces,” Onodera said in a speech at a private think tank in Tokyo.
“Or if we faced a North Korean missile, Japan would first attempt to shoot it down from the sea, then from the ground.
“While the Air Defence Force has huge radar sites, it is the Ground Self Defence Force who protect these important facilities,” he said, adding the country’s military had to be alert to a possible “intrusion from the sea”.

Read it all here.

The Japanese are moving full steam ahead into a full fledged arms race that appears to have the support of the people.  We've never seen a nationalistic Japanese nation.  Not in modern times anyway.  If history repeats then we're about to see a sight to behold.

Ancient tensions.  Ancient animosities.  Ancient grudges.

All settled with modern weaponry.

Add to it an America ready to step back from the international stage and take care of issues at home and you have a massive power vacuum.

The burning question.

China has nukes. N. Korea has nukes.  Will Japan acquire them along with a more powerful military?