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Japan’s new defense strategy and their already existing massive economic influence in Southeast Asia will make them the west's secret weapon against communist authoritarian China. Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida recently unveiled on December 16th 2022 his country's new 5 year $320 billion dollar defense plan that will acquire 500 US made tomahawk cruise missiles that can strike Chinese territory for the first time. It will effectively double the size of Japan's military budget and make them the world’s third-largest military spender right after the United States and China. It’s not just an increase in weapons, their publicly released historic 2022 National Defense outlines sound justifications and legal arguments for this rearmanet as well as a change in their defense posture to deter aggression.

Oh no! Sound the alarms! The Japanese empire has woken up from its slumber and they’re getting ready to take over the world again! ” Obviously that’s absolutely ridiculous but tell that to North Korea, Russia and China who all took turns coming out to publicly denounce Japan’s new military plan as “dangerous” and alluding to Japan's history as an expansionist empire. Chinese Communist Party tabloid Global Times said “Japan has a history of straying into militarism and committing aggression and crimes against humanity, which has brought disaster to the region and the world and is now deviating from the track of post-war peaceful development. Apparently it’s only okay for China to increase defense spending and no one else. Yes Even 80 years after the last world war it’s hard for some people to forget. *people don’t forget meme*

In most modern discussions about great power politics we completely overlook Japan but I think a closer analysis will show you that this great nation holds the keys to keeping China in check. Many people do not understand just how much economic influence and soft power Japan projects despite having a somewhat self imposed limited military. Even though China’s GDP surpassed Japan’s in 2010. Japan is still the largest sponsor of infrastructure projects in Southeast Asia. Yes, that's even bigger than China’s massive efforts to expand with their Belt and Road Initiative throughout the region. As of 2021 Japan's investments in projects in Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam is $259 billion compared to China’s $157 billion. This means Japanese banks lend more to Southeast Asia's five largest economies than the United States, UK and France combined. Doesn’t explain why my loan requests to Japanese banks are always denied but fair enough. Japan's massive construction projects across Asia give them tremendous credibility, respect, and influence in foreign policy decisions in the region. This makes Japan a closer rival to China than the US in this regard. Tokyo is the undisputed heavyweight champ of infrastructure investments in South East Asia even though China gets all the news reports about their belt and road initiative.

These projects include a subway system for Manila and a new East-west southern economic corridor that will link up Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and Myanmar to promote free trade. These are some of the projects Japan is changing the world with. So how does Japan compete against China in this field? They offer low interest rates of around .25% for 30 year loans which is way better than the 4% interest rates on China’s projects which have been criticized for debt trapping developing countries.

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