from the Wall Street Journal Europe, 2004-Dec-14:

Japan's Alarm Bells

The rest of the world may not have taken much notice -- and Europe just flirted with lifting an arms embargo on Beijing -- but Japan is becoming more alarmed that China's rise poses a security risk to Asia and the world. As a result of this and other concerns, Japan is rapidly moving to strengthen its ties with the U.S. across the board.

The most recent signal came late last week when Japan shifted its main defense focus away from Russia and toward China, in a once-a-decade military review. That China reacted with outrage simply revealed its leaders to be either disingenuous or divorced from reality. Beijing has made no secret of its ambition to rise not just economically but also militarily, in order to regain what it considers its rightful and historic place as Asia's hegemon. [Junichiro Koizumi]

As long as this was empty rhetoric, China's neighbors paid little mind. But Japan's urgency, taken in the context of growing wariness in Southeast Asia, and of course in Taiwan, bears a closer look.

So, incidentally, do the irresponsible actions of U.S. treaty allies France and Germany, which last week all but begged their confreres in Europe to lift the 15-year-old arms embargo on China. For the U.S., which China would like to displace as the dominant military force in the Western Pacific, now is not the time to ignore the region.

Tokyo's shift in emphasis came late last week when the cabinet approved a change in the guidelines that are issued to policy planners. Henceforth, the Japanese military is to regard North Korea and China, not Russia, as the main dangers to its home islands. Japan does not take these decisions lightly -- the last time it revised its strategy was nine years ago -- but it had good reason to act.

The Japanese defense outline stated the rationale clearly when it said China is "pushing forward its nuclear and missile capabilities and modernization of its navy and air force. It is also trying to expand its scope of naval activities. Attention must be paid to these developments."

After the military review, Beijing responded on cue with its best Claude Raines imitation, and expressed "strong dissatisfaction." Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue called the Japanese statement "completely baseless and irresponsible."

But China would have great difficulty countering Japan's observation of the facts. Again last week, Japan's government was forced to lodge a protest with Beijing because of the intrusion of a Chinese vessel into Japanese waters.

Japanese anti-sub aircraft had already chased a Chinese nuclear submarine out of Japan's maritime parameter last month, a violation for which Japan's government says China later apologized. But last week China was at it again, sending a research vessel into Japan's exclusive economic zone to survey the seabed near the island of Okinotori with sonar beams.

Beijing's new willingness to throw its weight around is coupled with the fact that China is in the midst of a major modernization of its military. In Washington last week a U.S. official confirmed to the Associated Press a report in the Washington Times that China is launching a new class of nuclear submarine. The "Type 094" would be the first Chinese sub capable of reaching the mainland United States from Chinese waters.

The new sub would carry a new ballistic missile that is under development, the JL-2. Its range would considerably exceed the 600 miles of the present Chinese missile.

China is also rapidly modernizing its air force and land-based systems. According to the Pentagon, China could increase its inventory of Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles by 50% next year, and double that by 2010.

So who could blame Japan for getting ready? A quick succession of decisions by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's cabinet last week should be seen in the light of the guidelines' explicit promise that Japan would become "more proactive" in its strategic partnership with the U.S.

On Thursday, the cabinet decided to extend Japan's mission in Iraq by a year, and on Friday it lifted a long-standing ban on military exports -- so it can cooperate more closely with the U.S. on a missile defense program -- and created an anti-terrorism unit, something that should please Washington.

Then on Sunday Japan made clear that it shares the Bush Administration's view that the only way to stop North Korea's nuclear weapons program is to give it the same choice that made Libyan leader Moamer Qadhaffi disarm -- come clean or face sanctions. Shinzo Abe, acting secretary general of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, challenged China to join sanctions, saying that if Beijing did "the North Korean regime would change in an instant."

Tipping Japan over the edge was probably the fact that "remains" that North Korea handed over, saying they were a Japanese national kidnapped by the Stalinist state decades ago, turned out to be a collection of bones from different skeletons. But China refuses to use its influence with North Korea, frustrating the U.S. and Japan.

China's communist leaders have never liked Mr. Koizumi, and complain bitterly about his annual visits to a shrine that contains the remains of soldiers who died half a century ago. But Beijing would be doing itself a great disservice if it reacted to Japan's understandable actions by sinking into a sulk. As George Melloan says in his Global View column today, China's economic involvement with the world is to be welcomed. But China should realize that it can't be a bully that protects rogue regimes and persuade others that it will be a peaceful neighbor.