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Moscow is strengthening military bases, missile systems and a submarine fleet in the Pacific, while Beijing is expanding joint patrols with Russia. Tokyo is responding with air force modernization, new exercises and a record increase in the defense budget...
Japan is following Russia's military developments in the North Pacific with growing concern and believes that a potential crisis with China could expose it to a two-front conflict scenario. In recent months, Tokyo has increased monitoring of the area around the island of Hokkaido, following increased Russian military exercises and joint operations between Moscow and Beijing.
According to Japanese authorities, there is a risk that the country will simultaneously face Chinese pressure in the East China Sea and a Russian military maneuver north of Japanese territory.
Japanese Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi has stated that Hokkaido's defenses must remain at maximum readiness, stressing that the Russian military presence in the Far East already poses a serious concern for national security.
According to the South China Morning Post, Tokyo's strategic concern is related to the increasingly close coordination between the Russian and Chinese armed forces in the sea and airspace surrounding Japan. In recent years, bombers from the two countries have conducted joint patrols, while Chinese warships have been increasingly spotted north of the Japanese archipelago.
Analysts believe that Russia is turning the Sea of Okhotsk into a protected area for its nuclear submarines, while at the same time strengthening its missile presence in the Southern Kuril Islands, territories that remain the subject of a dispute with Japan.
Tokyo's main concern is the possibility that Moscow could exploit a potential crisis between China and Japan to open a secondary front near Hokkaido, forcing Japan to disperse its military forces and resources in several directions.
For this reason, the Japanese Self-Defense Forces have increased exercises for the rapid deployment of troops from the south to the north of the country. In parallel, Japan is accelerating the modernization of military aviation. The aging F-15 aircraft at the Chitose base will be gradually replaced with fifth-generation F-35A aircraft, which are considered essential for maintaining air superiority in the event of an escalation of regional tensions.
Japanese concerns have also been heightened by the increase in the number of air intercepts of Russian and Chinese aircraft. In the first nine months of last year alone, Japanese fighter jets scrambled 448 times to identify aircraft that entered the country's air defense zone.
A large part of these missions involved Russian IL-20 surveillance aircraft, but MiG-31 aircraft equipped with Kinzhal hypersonic missiles have attracted particular attention. These weapons, capable of changing trajectory in flight, are considered very difficult to neutralize and pose a significant challenge to Japanese defense systems.
Meanwhile, the Kremlin is continuing to expand its naval presence in the Pacific. Russia is expanding its nuclear submarine base in Kamchatka and preparing new specialized units for operations at great underwater depths.
Tokyo believes that strategic rivalry is not limited to air and maritime space, but can also extend to underwater infrastructure, including communication cables and energy networks.
The Japanese government has approved a record $58 billion defense budget, aiming to simultaneously counter strategic pressure from Russia and China in the Pacific region.
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