MAJOR MOVE IN THE PACIFIC:  As readers know, one of the missions of Urgent Agenda is to direct attention to important events that don't get the attention they deserve in the mainstream media.

One of those events is the decision by Japan to reject the near-pacifism of the post-World War II decades and rebuild itself as a major military power.   The main reason for the change is the rise of a militant, threatening China.  From the German outlet, Deutsche Welle: 

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is meeting US President Joe Biden at the White House on Friday, just weeks after Tokyo revised its defense strategy to break from its postwar restraint to take on more offensive roles with an eye toward China. 

The US and Japan are currently strengthening their military, economic and technological cooperation in response to changes in the geopolitical and security environment in Asia brought on by the rise of China as a military power.

Last week, Kishida described the US visit, his first to the country as premier, as "very significant."

"We will show to the rest of the world an even stronger Japan-US alliance, which is a linchpin of Japanese security and diplomacy," Kishida said. "We will also show our further cooperation toward achieving a 'free and open Indo-Pacific.'"

A statement released by the White House last week said Biden and Kishida would discuss expanding cooperation on a range of regional and global issues, from climate change and critical technologies to North Korea's weapons program, the war in Ukraine, as well as stability in the Taiwan Strait.

Japan's defense and security policies will be high on the agenda when both leaders sit for talks on Friday.

Kishida's administration recently unveiled a massive $320-billion (€295-billion) military buildup over the next five years that would arm it with missiles capable of striking China and ready it for a sustained conflict amid growing regional tensions.

Tokyo said it would also stockpile spare parts and other munitions, reinforce logistics, develop cyberwarfare capabilities and cooperate more closely with the United States and other like-minded nations to deter threats.

"The strategic challenge posed by China is the biggest Japan has ever faced," it said in the national security paper released last month.

Kishida's plan will also hike defense spending to about 2% of gross domestic product over the next five years and increase the Defense Ministry's share to around a tenth of all public spending. It will make Japan the world's third-biggest military spender after the United States and China, based on current budgets.

"Until now, Japan has played the shield, i.e., taken on the defensive part, and the US has been the sword, responsible for offensive capabilities," said Alexandra Sakaki, a Japan expert at the Berlin-based German Institute for International and Security Affairs think tank.
"This division of responsibilities loses clarity if Japan now acquires offensive capabilities, so you have to define how to deal with this new division of roles," she said.

The strategic changes are the latest and biggest step in Japan's yearslong drive to move away from the constraints imposed by its pacifist constitution and turn itself into a stronger military power.

COMMENT:  Please read the whole thing.  This is big stuff, a change in the balance of power in the Pacific. 

The new Republican majority in the House is establishing a special subcommittee to deal with the threat of an aggressive China.  Already it is being attacked by the Democratic Party's lunatic fringe as "racist."  But the new subcommittee already has major bipartisan support.  The WOKE crowd is losing on this one...so far.

January 12-13, 2023