Japan directed its spearhead at China again in its "2011 Defense White Paper," presented by the country's Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa and approved at a cabinet meeting on Aug. 2. The white paper followed the style of Japan's new National Defense Program Outline released in December 2010 in analysis of the security environment surrounding Japan and called on the country to strengthen national defense, especially the defense in southwest regions in order to deal with "China threat."

The Asahi Shimbun, a major national newspaper in Japan, said that the new white paper is clearly directed against China and is full of bitter, groundless accusations of China's military buildup. For example, the document unjustifiably criticized China for poor military transparency, claiming that China's military spending has increased rapidly and that the uses of its spending have long been vague.

In order to deal with possible threats posed by China, the white paper noted that Japan should follow the course set in the National Defense Program Outline and develop a "dynamic defense force" that possesses preparedness, mobility, flexibility, sustainability and versatility based on strong technical and information capabilities thanks to constant progress in military technology.

According to the new white paper, the development of a "Dynamic Defense Force" will focus on strengthening the control of Japan's southwestern territories, particularly offshore islands, and Japan will "accordingly station coastal surveillance forces and transportation aircraft and reinforce military exercises to respond to attacks."

This implies that "strengthening the defense in island areas of southwestern Japan" and "stationing military forces in offshore islands without defense capacities" will become the major direction of Japan's future defense policy. Japan's media agencies reported that the purpose of Japan's move is very clear: preventing China's navy from accessing the Pacific. It is rational for China to pay close attention to Japan's move.

Thanks to the joint efforts made by the leaders of China and Japan over recent years, mutually beneficial China-Japan relations have made remarkable progress, and the two countries' political and security ties are generally improving.

However, Japan has released a new white paper that displays a strong "Cold War mentality" regardless of the big picture regarding the development of China-Japan relations. Why has Japan neglected China's continuous efforts over recent years to increase its military transparency and insisted on stressing the "China threat" rhetoric? Why has Japan ignored China's good intentions, continued to strengthen its military deployments targeting China and sought confrontation instead of peace?

The fundamental reason is that there are right-wing forces that deviate from the epochal theme of peace and development in Japan. They stubbornly keep the "Cold War mentality" and attempt to defer or obstruct China's peaceful development through means such as containment.

The reason why they pay so much attention to China's military development and make groundless accusations against China's normal military construction is that Japan wants to take this opportunity to strengthen its southwestern military force. This shows that Japan feels anxious and has a strong alert mental about China's development.

China has to maintain a high-level alert on Japan's behavior of ignoring the overall situation of China-Japan relations and maliciously taking the "China threat" as an excuse for promoting its defense policy adjustments and defense force construction that aims at breaking the "exclusively defensive" military strategy.