Japan Fears China, and Rightly So By James Reed

     The Japanese are clear thinking and do not go in for our brand of economic prostitution, that we trade with X, therefore we worship X, or pretend to be their toadies. Trade is trade for the much more rational, still far from deracinated Japanese, who are difficult not to admire. Their culture is everything our is not, but once was.
  https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-27/japan-promotes-china-as-bigger-threat-than-nuclear-armed-north/11554880

“China's growing military might has replaced North Korean belligerence as the main security threat to Japan, according to Tokyo's annual defence review — this despite signs that Pyongyang could have nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles. Key Points:

•    China's military spending is set to rise more than three times that of Japan.
•    Beijing now routinely sends its air and sea patrols near Japan's western Okinawa islands
•    Japan considerers Chinese patrols near its territory a '"security concern"

The document's security assessment on China — listing them as a threat — comes after a section on Japan's ally, the United States, which, along with Japan's own defence system, forms the cornerstone of Japan's security. This is the first time Beijing has achieved second place in the Defence White Paper, pushing North Korea into third position. Russia, deemed by Japan as its primary threat during the Cold War, was in fourth place. "The reality is that China is rapidly increasing military spending, and so people can grasp that we need more pages," Minister of Defence Taro Kono said at a media briefing. President Xi Jinping is overseeing a sweeping plan to refurbish China's People's Liberation (PLA) by developing everything from stealth jets to aircraft carriers as China ramps up its presence in the South China Sea and around Taiwan, which Beijing considers a rogue Chinese territory. In March, Beijing unveiled a target of 7.5 per cent rise in defence spending for 2019, a slower rate than last year but one that still outpaces China's economic growth target. In 2018, China invested some $US239.2 billion ($354 billion) in its military — a sum greater than the gross domestic products (GDPs) of entire countries such as New Zealand, Greece or Portugal in the same year — according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). Today, this means the PLA is swiftly catching up to the technological prowess of Washington and Moscow, and military analysis website Global Firepower estimated the Chinese military draws upon about 2.18 million active personnel.”

     Japan still has healthy survival instinct, unlike the West, which is gripped with a suicidal mania, and Japan is right to be concerned about China. And, we have not seen anything yet.