Until recently, the Japanese doctrine about Beijing was based solely on negotiation and good understanding, despite sometimes severe disagreements, especially around the Senkaku Islands claimed by the two countries, as well as by Taiwan. In the 2000s, the two countries even managed to implement a co-exploitation of the subsoil rich in gas and oil around this archipelago, a way to punctually resolve the territorial disputes between them and to maintain the economical dynamic very positive of the region, which benefited the two Asian dragons. But in recent years, and in particular from the very severe hardening of Chinese positions on the China Sea and other territorial claims, relations between the two countries have gradually deteriorated, and military tensions have naturally followed the opposite path. .
From now on, encounters between the ships or combat planes of the two countries in the contested zone continue to multiply, to the point that the Japanese authorities recently had to modify their doctrine in order to preserve the potential of its fleet of F15Js, overexploited to come meet the planes from Beijing coming to venture into the airspace of the Senkaku archipelago. However, Tokyo remained very reserved about the possible use of its bases by the American ally if the latter were to intervene to protect Taiwan from Chinese intervention. Indeed, relations between Taipei and Tokyo have rarely been good, and the Japanese authorities until recently did not view the rise of Taiwanese independence parties favorably since the beginning of the 2010s, knowing that this would trigger a potentially dangerous cycle in the region. Are these Beijing’s threats to strike “all US allies in the region” what if Washington came to support Taiwan in the face of Chinese military intervention, or the increasingly aggressive postures of the Chinese authorities on the regional or international scene? The fact is, now Tokyo seems ready to support the United States against China to defend Taiwan.
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