This essay details the real military, territorial, and cultural threats posed by North Korea, China, and South Korea, and exposes the contradiction of domestic voices in Japan that echo foreign talking points to suppress legitimate national defense debate.

There are people within Japan who loudly shout the very same lines as China and South Korea, such as “Consider the neighboring countries!” and “Reflect on history!”.
2016-10-31
The following is a continuation of the previous chapter.
When it comes to awareness of national defense, this is no time to be complacent.
The threats posed by Japan’s neighboring countries did not begin today.
Some may already have forgotten, but North Korea fired a missile toward the Sea of Japan in May 1993, and in August 1998 launched one that flew over Japanese territory and landed in the Pacific Ocean.
How abnormal this was.
At that time, the Japanese government did protest, but when yet another missile was launched in July 2006, eight years after the previous incident, Japan still lacked defensive weapons capable of deterrence and an interception system.
The surveillance satellites monitoring the Korean Peninsula around the clock were also inadequate.
(Note: monitoring has since been strengthened by increasing the number of satellites to four.)
In other words, despite being within the range of missiles capable of killing tens of thousands of civilians immediately, and despite having already faced terrifying situations in reality, Japan remained in that dangerous state for eight years without effective countermeasures, and even debate itself was frequently obstructed.
Moreover, the threat is not limited to North Korea.
South Korea, while providing rice, fertilizer, and financial support to North Korea, abducted and killed Japanese fishermen, occupied Takeshima, which is Japanese territory, with armed police, and public opinion there is favorable toward nuclear armament.
Furthermore, as we have seen, South Korea’s hostility toward Japan exists at the level of national policy.
China possesses thousands of nuclear missiles and directs them at major Japanese cities such as Tokyo, Osaka, and Fukuoka.
It openly declares the Senkaku Islands, which are Japanese territory, to be “Chinese territory,” proceeds unilaterally with gas field development, and imposes nothing but one-sided demands.
In November 2004, when a Chinese submarine intruded into Japanese territorial waters, the U.S. military and the Japan Self-Defense Forces were monitoring the situation, leaving the Chinese government unable to deny the intrusion itself, which it officially acknowledged.
Nevertheless, China refused to apologize, offering strained excuses such as “a technical problem caused the vessel to stray into Japanese waters,” and even went so far as to express displeasure, claiming that “Japan made an excessive fuss over the incident.”
South Korea is not content with territorial encroachment alone, but also targets Japanese culture.
From samurai, bushido, Japanese swords, judo, kendo, karate, aikido, sumo, tea ceremony, ikebana, manga, enka, the Emperor, and even the Japanese language itself, it seeks to portray “Japanese culture that has gained global recognition” as Korean culture, one after another.
If Japan continues to allow foreign countries to say whatever they like regarding historical issues, territorial issues, or cultural matters, it risks gradually losing things that are vital to the nation.
In this situation, where officials merely express regret and the media obscure their language,
the people should clearly and loudly state that Japan is being encroached upon.
Despite such circumstances, the Japanese public remains weak in its awareness of national defense and continues to leave an incomplete defense system unattended.
What is more, some media outlets brazenly publish reckless opinions such as “in consideration of Asia, the Self-Defense Forces should also be disbanded.”
But think carefully.
Just as it is natural for any living creature to think about protecting its own life, it is a natural right for any nation to “debate its own national defense.”
No matter how large a continental power, or how small a remote island nation, the right to consider the defense of one’s own country is equally inviolable.
There are many kinds of countries in the world, and not all are good and peaceful.
Of course, there are good countries, but even those consider national defense for protecting their own country to be, quite naturally, the minimum “duty” of the state toward its citizens.
This is because countries around the world squarely face the “reality” that nations like North Korea exist—countries that do not fear isolation from the international community and do not hesitate to ignore international law.
If one accepts as it is the reality that countries which cannot be called good do exist, then maintaining defensive capabilities to protect one’s own country, or at the very least “debating them,” is necessary and a natural right that anyone can understand.
Yet in Japan, there are those who loudly shout the same phrases as China and South Korea—“Consider the neighboring countries!” and “Reflect on history!”—in order to make even the exercise of that natural right hesitate.
The argument that “even thinking about national defense will cause distrust or discomfort among neighboring countries” is their desperate tactic to obstruct debate itself.
However, it is a well-known fact that those very “neighboring countries”—China, Russia, South Korea, and North Korea—continue to expand their military power every year.
There is no sign that they intend to stop strengthening their military forces.
On the contrary, countries such as China expand their military at a staggering pace, yet even when Japan and the United States directly demand explanations for the reasons behind such extraordinary buildup, they fail to provide any credible explanation.
And within Japan, there are those who even defend such Chinese excesses.
They shout “Oppose military expansion! Oppose war!” toward Japan, yet never direct the same slogans at China.
The claim of the domestic left in Japan is that “Japanese alone should renounce the right to defend themselves,” while “the right of people of other countries to defend themselves should be respected.”
No matter how one thinks about it, this is a deeply irrational argument.
To be continued.
The above is taken from http://ccce.web.fc2.com/a.html.