Unfortunately, the likelihood of this potential being utilised has been rising quickly. The CCP frequently accentuate Japan’s historic invasion of China to promote ultranationalism, then post as the so-called saviour for a cheap but effective popularity boost. Resultantly, hatred and hostility towards Japan have always been prevalent amongst the Chinese, some even outrageously called for a preemptive nuclear strike on Japan if they defend Taiwan. 

Whilst this is extremely unlikely to happen as Xi is the only one with the legal and actual authority to mobilise the military, Japan should be no stranger to how a frantic, blood-thirsty, yet unsatisfied population can lead its army into uncontrollable militarism. From a practical military standpoint, Japan’s potential and increasing inclination to defend Taiwan would also be a great nuisance. 

In order to intimidate Japan from doing so, China passed through the Tsugaru strait between Japan’s main island and Hokkaido during a joint military drill with Russia last October, which effectively put Japan temporarily under the warships’ attack range. More recently, 5 ballistic missiles were launched into Japan’s EEZ for the first time during its military exercises surrounding Taiwan after Nancy Pelosi’s visit, with sources even claiming that Xi personally made this decision to solidify his warning message. 

Not only does Xi’s aggressive demeanour jeopardises peace and stability in the SCS, but it is also entirely self-interested. Having further centralised and consolidated power, even amending the Chinese constitution to extend his term in office, he needs solid, convincing personal achievements for legitimacy. With a record high youth unemployment rate of 20%, a crumbling house market, and a less than satisfactory GDP growth, economic success, which used to be the CCP’s major source of mandate, is no longer viable. Combined with the harsh and politically motivated zero-Covid policy, dissent is piling up high. This leaves Xi with the last resort to boost popularity and cling to power, the “unification” of Taiwan that he had emphasised heavily in his agenda. 

Nevertheless, the US and Japan’s own military bases in Japan will always be an eyesore to Xi by nature, and his decision to attack them cannot be ruled out. Obvious targets would then be the Yokosuka harbour where the US aircraft carrier strike group(CSG) is stationed, the Sasebo harbour in Kyushu due to its proximity and potential for logistical support, and the bases in Okinawa for similar reasons. All of these bases are closely located to civilian space and collateral damage is almost a certainty. 

With their hands tied by Article 9, the JSDF’s actions are limited to intercepting incoming missiles, of which there is no guarantee of success, whereas even if China one-sidedly inflicted casualties upon innocent Japanese citizens, they will face nothing more than moral condemnations. Not being able to strike back at missile launchers placed in China would place Japan in a forever passive position and on the receiving end of attacks, which increases the likeliness of victimhood indefinitely. 

Even if China decides not to directly attack Japan when invading Taiwan, Japan would still suffer a huge loss due to the former’s certain employment of the anti-access/area denial(A2/AD) strategy. China would announce a naval (and aerial) blockade around Taiwan that will prevent third parties (i.e. the US) from bringing its forces to the contested area so the Taiwanese army is isolated whilst also having their only possible logistic route of supplies cut off. This would however also be an indirect and implicit blockade of Japan, an island nation famous for lacking natural resources and whose imports are delivered through sea lanes in the SCS and the Taiwan strait. 

The lack of raw materials will not just inflict severe inflation like the current one due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but also cripple Japan’s high-value-adding industries, while tourism would also become too dangerous, thereby knocking over all pillars of their economy at once. As an economy highly integrated into the global supply chain, Japan would almost instantly get paralysed and  suffer from huge economic losses without even having to be struck by China.  

In order to deter China from its unilateral attempts to change the status quo with force, Japan must maintain the regional military balance. Deterrence theory dictates that without a strong enough army (capability), willingness to deploy it (credibility), and efforts to elucidate that (communication), Xi would be given the impression that he can emerge victorious and hence much more willing to engage in a war, especially given the growing strength of the PLAN. This entails that Japan must start abandoning its tacit self-restraint of not spending more than 1% of its GDP on defence to close the gap in military capability and discard Article 9, which directly renounces the credibility factor.