Published on December 3, 2019.
This is a republication of a chapter originally posted on March 13, 2018.
It discusses China’s alleged 2013 “Short, Sharp War” plan, a military invasion scenario targeting the Senkaku Islands and Okinawa, maritime militia, the linkage between a Korean Peninsula contingency and a Senkaku crisis, and the quasi-combat state indicated by repeated JASDF scrambles.

December 3, 2019.
The fact that scrambles are being launched almost every day means, internationally speaking, a quasi-combat state.
The view on the U.S. military side is that Japan and China are in a quasi-combat state.
I am republishing the chapter I posted on March 13, 2018, under the title: China, as of 2013, had a military invasion plan called the “Short, Sharp War,” a plan to illegally occupy the Senkaku Islands, Okinawa, and other places.
The following is a continuation of the previous chapter.
A Korean Peninsula contingency and a Senkaku crisis are linked.
The second issue is the Japan problem.
It is not only the problem that “Japan cannot evacuate Japanese nationals in South Korea by itself.”
In the event of a Korean Peninsula contingency, there is also the danger that the Chinese Communist Party government may illegally occupy the Senkaku Islands, in Ishigaki City, Okinawa Prefecture, like a thief at a fire.
In the Trump administration, there are not a few experts who believe that a Korean Peninsula contingency and a Senkaku crisis are linked.
As of 2013, China had created a military invasion plan called the “Short, Sharp War,” a plan to illegally occupy the Senkaku Islands, Okinawa, and other places.
It is a scenario in which irregular troops disguised as fishermen, called maritime militia, are sent in to occupy them.
In Zhejiang Province, China, there is said to be a base for this maritime militia battalion, with 6,000 personnel.
Apart from this maritime militia unit, China is also strengthening its marine corps in anticipation of an invasion of Taiwan.
This invasion scenario is also clearly stated in the Annual Report to Congress: Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2014, published by the U.S. Department of Defense in June 2014.
At present, in Okinawa, including the Senkaku Islands, Japan Self-Defense Force aircraft continue to scramble against Chinese military aircraft.
The fact that scrambles are being launched almost every day means, internationally speaking, a quasi-combat state.
The view on the U.S. military side is that Japan and China are in a quasi-combat state.
This essay continues.
When we consider the fact, proven by border conflicts with India and other cases, that China first creates a mood of friendship toward the country it intends to invade, Mr. Ezaki’s genuine essay makes clear that it is extremely dangerous to judge China’s current movements, which appear to seek friendship with Japan, only from the aspects that the Belt and Road Initiative is in fact not going well and that China has economic anxieties.
The true understanding of international politics and international affairs is probably to assume that China’s present mood of Japan-China friendship exists for the purpose of carrying out a landing on the Senkaku Islands.