Nikkei Asia:

A group of lawmakers in Japan’s ruling party on Thursday recommended that Japan and the U.S. revise their defense guidelines to focus on potential flashpoints involving China, particularly Taiwan and the South China Sea.

The guidelines set out the respective roles and missions of Japan’s Self-Defense Forces and the U.S. military in the alliance, and how the two should work together.

The document was first drafted in 1978, during the Cold War, when an invasion of Hokkaido by the Soviet Union was seen as the main threat scenario. It has been revised only twice since then: in 1997, as North Korean ballistic missile tests brought the prospect of a Korean Peninsula conflict to the fore, and in 2015, when Japan passed legislation allowing limited exercise of the right to collective self-defense.

This proposed third update would put the Taiwan Strait in the spotlight, and emphasize preparing to deal with China and its military expansion…



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