December 20, 2023: Currently China is increasingly aggressive in the Pacific, claiming ownership of more and more Pacific islands. Many of these islands are far from the Chinese coast. China expects to eventually take possession of these islands as they continue building more warships and basing troops and weapons on islands they have already claimed or, in some cases, built by dredging up lots of sand to expand a reef into an island capable of supporting an airstrip, a dock and a garrison. Many World War II airfields were abandoned after Japan surrendered in September 1945 and have since become overgrown with vegetation. These airfields are still usable once you remove the vegetation, make some repairs, and add some support facilities.

Since World War II the main American airbase in the Pacific was on the island of Guam. This has turned Guam into a vulnerable target for long range Chinese ballistic missiles. Guam is still important, but additional bases are needed to supplement and possibly replace Guam in the event of a major war, so the U.S. government is creating some.

The island bases currently being revived include one on Tinian and another in the Philippines. One or more of the Northern Mariana Islands will also become an emergency airbase. These air bases have several uses. One is as a divert airbase, for aircraft that need to land somewhere and that is often difficult over the Pacific. Some of the divert fields would have fuel and other items needed to get an aircraft into the air again. Having many of these airfields makes it difficult for China or anyone else to paralyze Americans land-based aviation by destroying or damaging just a few airbases. American allies in the region, like Japan, Australia, Philippines, and Taiwan can also use these remote Pacific Island bases. These allies already have their own bases that are available to allies.

Japan already has several smaller islands it can use for additional bases. Japan is expanding its military presence on and around Okinawa by building a radar station on Yonaguni Island. This is the westernmost inhabited Japanese island, although it only officially became part of Japan in 1879, along with Okinawa. Yonaguni island has a population of 1,500 and is a favorite tourist attraction for Japanese. The island is 2,000 kilometers southwest of Tokyo, 505 kilometers west of Okinawa, 300 kilometers southeast of China, 110 kilometers east of Taiwan and 144 kilometers southwest of the disputed, by China, Senkaku Islands. This new radar station produced a very loud protest from China who are not happy with Japanese hostility to Chinese threats over the Senkakus. Okinawa is als0 2,280 kilometers from Guam.

The Japanese are alarmed at increasing Chinese military activity in waters and airspace around their main islands and more distant smaller islands. It’s not just disputed areas, especially the Senkaku Islands, but around Okinawa and increasingly east of Japan, in the Pacific. Operating out there is what the Chinese would have to do for a blockade of Japan. There is growing support for expanding the Japanese military as a result of all this Chinese naval and air activity, especially obtaining long range UAVs for maritime patrol and ballistic missiles for hitting Chinese bases in the event of hostilities. This doesn’t bother China as much as constant Japanese chatter about developing nuclear weapons, but the Chinese believe that decades of anti-nuke militancy would prevent Japan from actually going down this road. If Japan did build nukes, it would make Japan once more dangerous to China and that could cause a really dangerous situation. A related issue is that South Korea is presently considering developing its own nuclear weapons as that will definitely affect Japan’s decision.

Back in 2012 China became particularly angry after the Japanese government purchased the Senkaku islands from the Japanese family that had owned them since the 19th century. China and Japan were also increasingly sending small warships to patrol contested parts of the disputed Diaoyu (in Chinese) Islands (Senkaku in Japanese and Tiaoyutai in Taiwan). The islands are actually islets, which are 167 kilometers northeast of Taiwan and 426 kilometers southeast of Japan's Okinawa and have a total area of 6.3 square kilometers. Taiwan also claims the islands, which were discovered by Chinese fishermen in the 16th century and taken over by Japan in 1879. They are valuable now because of the 380 kilometer economic zone nations can claim in their coastal waters. This includes fishing and possible underwater oil and gas fields. For China, the islands are a valuable source of fish, with Chinese fishing boats taking over 150,000 tons a year from the vicinity of the Senkakus. China fears that Japan might try to prohibit Chinese fishing in the area.

A conservative Japanese political group built a lighthouse there in 1986, to further claims of Japanese ownership. The Japanese have the most powerful naval forces in the region and are backed up by a mutual defense treaty with the United States. China was long dissuaded by that, but no more. China is no longer backing off on its claims, and neither is Japan. So, these confrontations are becoming more serious. Taiwan is not considered a serious contender in this dispute but is showing up anyway.

China also has claims on Okinawa, but the Chinese government has not become aggressive about this yet, as they have with claims on Indian territory. Back in 2010, responding to Japanese media reports of menacing Chinese warships off Okinawa, China announced that these were Chinese navy ships engaged in training in international waters. Nothing special. Just training. Trust us.

Most Japanese don’t trust China. There has been growing evidence since 2000 that this distrust is warranted. For example, back in 2004 China admitted that a submerged submarine the Japanese navy had been tracking off the coast of Okinawa was indeed a Chinese boat. The Japanese had always insisted that the sub was Chinese. Apparently, American P-3 patrol aircraft, operating from Guam, were the first to pick up the location of the Chinese sub and then turned the tracking over to the Japanese navy. It was American technology that confirmed the identification of the sub. During the Cold War, the United States developed techniques for identifying individual submarines according to their shape, and by the noises they made. The American navy maintains electronic databases of submarine signatures. China apologized for the incident, which had their boat inside Japanese territorial waters for a short period of time. China said the cause was a navigational accident. China has been sending its subs to see more often since 2000 in order to raise the skill levels of the crews.