Alastair Gale

Japan’s Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi questioned the accuracy of China’s official military spending figures in a fresh sign that Tokyo is taking a tougher line in response to Beijing’s claims that its regional rival is pursuing “new militarism.”

Militaries from the US to China are racing to build sea drones, reshaping warfare across the Indo-Pacific’s vast waters

Chinese coast guard vessels have been asserting Beijing’s claims to maritime borders east of Taiwan and close to a Japanese island, Tokyo’s top government spokesman said, as tension continues to simmer after Japan and the Philippines said in May they would map out their claims in the region.

China warned two Japanese Coast Guard survey vessels to stop operating in the East China Sea in recent days, Japan’s top government spokesman said, unusual moves that highlight elevated tensions over sea border claims in the area and worsening diplomatic ties between Beijing and Tokyo.

The Japanese premier sees India as integral to maintaining the status quo in the Asia-Pacific region.

A Chinese destroyer conducted a machine gun test around 180 kilometers (111 miles) southwest of a Japanese island in the Pacific Ocean, Tokyo’s Defense Ministry said, a rare live-fire exercise by the Chinese navy while inside the exclusive economic zone of Japanese territory.

Japan is set to launch a new National Intelligence Bureau to bring together its fragmented system of collecting and analyzing information related to national security and public safety, marking a milestone in Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s efforts to make the nation more resilient to internal and external threats.

The missile was launched from the destroyer JS Chokai in the Pacific Ocean, according to the Defense Ministry.

Growing military coordination between China, Russia and North Korea is heightening security risks for Japan, Tokyo said in its latest defense white paper, citing increasingly provocative Chinese-Russian bomber patrols and Moscow’s support for North Korea’s military modernization.

GROWING military coordination between China, Russia and North Korea is heightening security risks for Japan, Tokyo said in its latest defense white paper, citing increasingly provocative Chinese-Russian bomber patrols and Moscow's support for North Korea's military modernization.