Japan Launches Huge Military Project Along 200 East China Sea Islands
SoutnikNews.com
21.12.2015
Japan is fortifying its island chain in the East China Sea under a strategy intended to keep China’s navy from dominating the Western Pacific Ocean, Japanese military and government sources said.
The United States is pushing its allies in Asia, Japan in particular, to counter Chinese military assertiveness in the region.
Tokyo has responded by stringing a line of anti-ship and anti-aircraft missile batteries along 200 islands in the East China Sea, stretching 870 miles from the country’s mainland toward Taiwan, Reuters reported.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s broader goal to beef up the country’s military has evolved to include a strategy to dominate the sea and air around the remote islands, Reuters reported, citing interviews with “a dozen military planners and government policymakers.”
Over the next five years, Japan will increase its forces on islands in the East China Sea by about a fifth, to almost 10,000 personnel.
The plan amounts to a Japanese version of the “anti-access/area denial” doctrine, known as “A2/AD” in military jargon, which China is currently using to try to push the United States and its allies out of the region.
