At the end of June this year, Japan released two government documents dealing with the country’s foreign and defense policy. It seems appropriate to briefly touch upon those aspects that carry the greatest weight today.

Yet the foreign policy course of the current U.S. president, Donald Trump, has become one of the chief sources of uncertainty on the international stage. These uncertainties stem both from Washington’s mixed signals toward Beijing and from the distinctly unfriendly, if not unintended, messages directed at America’s main regional partners and allies. The latter were triggered above all by Trump’s launching of a “tariff war.”

It is against this backdrop of uncertainty that Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Defense published their respective Blue and White Papers. Both outline Tokyo’s priorities and concerns on the global stage, but above all in the surrounding zones of the Indo-Pacific.

China and Japan’s Security Concerns

Japan’s wary stance toward China is clearly reflected in both documents. In the very introduction to the Defense White Paper 2025, Defense Minister Gen Nakatani writes about China, which is “rapidly increasing its defense spending to enhance the quantitative and qualitative capabilities of its armed forces.” Their growing presence in the East China Sea—”particularly around the Senkaku Islands (known in China as the Diaoyu Islands)” — as well as in Pacific waters, is presented as a direct threat to Japan’s national interests and security. Accordingly, the defense minister’s rhetoric is focused first and foremost on “strengthening Japan’s own defense potential,” which is to be secured in part through higher military spending.........

© New Eastern Outlook