While global attention focused on North Korea’s missile threat, China has steadily prepared for potential conflict over the Senkaku Islands. A U.S. congressional report highlights the real crisis facing Japan. The growing military threat from China may constitute Japan’s true national emergency, demanding strategic resolve.

Hidden behind the North Korean missile uproar, China has steadily been preparing for combat readiness. What is Japan’s resolve.
2018-01-17
The following is an article by Yoshihisa Komori, visiting correspondent in Washington for Sankei Shimbun, published in the February issue of the monthly magazine WiLL.
Emphasis in the text, except for the headlines, is mine.
Seizure of the Senkaku Islands. On the eve of war.
Hidden behind the North Korean missile uproar, China has steadily been preparing for combat readiness. What is Japan’s resolve.
The true national crisis.
For Japan, the true national crisis is indeed the threat from China.
A research report that we cannot help but accept such recognition was released by the United States Congress.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe declared that Japan’s national crises are “the threat from North Korea” and “the declining birthrate and aging population.”
Certainly, in Japan today, if one speaks of a national crisis in the sense of external danger threatening the nation, many would point to North Korea’s nuclear weapons and development of long-range missiles.
However, we must acknowledge that the even greater threat and danger to Japan now becoming clear lies in China’s actions, especially its moves to seize Japan’s inherent territory, the Senkaku Islands, even by military means.
China is intruding into Japanese territory and attempting to seize it.
These acts of aggression have already begun and have become constant.
The reality of this Senkaku crisis has been detailed in the annual report of a U.S. congressional policy advisory body.
On the Japanese side, there are hardly any politicians or bureaucrats who sound the alarm directly about this crisis concerning the Senkaku Islands.
The major news media do not report it prominently either.
It can be said that for the general public, China’s acts of aggression are received almost as if they were routine daily occurrences.
Yet Japan’s territory is already being encroached upon and may be plundered.
Moreover, the confrontation between Japan and China over the Senkaku Islands carries the risk of escalating into full-scale war between the United States and China.
Unlike the future danger of North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missiles, for Japan this is a crisis whose spear point has already pierced deeply into part of the body.
More than the threat from North Korea, it is a national crisis that is closer at hand, easier to recognize in terms of real damage and danger.
It was the U.S. organization called the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission that shed light on the Senkaku crisis and pointed out its gravity.
To be continued.