The 'Arleigh Burke'-class guided-missile destroyers USS 'Barry' and USS 'Mustin' are underway in formation with the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force missile destroyer JS 'Sawagiri' during the U.S.-Japan Bilateral Advanced Warfighting Training exercise in March 2020. U.S. Navy photo by Ensign Samuel Hardgrove
Forbes: The Chinese Navy Now Outguns The Japanese Fleet—But Don’t Panic Quite Yet
China has surpassed Japan as Asia’s leading naval power. After two decades of explosive growth, the Chinese fleet now possesses more ships and more missiles than the Japanese fleet does.
“The balance of naval power in Asia is shifting dramatically,” Toshi Yoshihara, a fellow with the Washington, D.C. Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, wrote in a May 2020 study. “China’s rise as a sea power could undermine Japan’s longstanding position in the Western Pacific and, in the process, undercut U.S. regional strategy in Asia.”
Yoshihara reveals the tilting balance of power in a series of informative charts. This first underscores the fundamental dynamic at play. In opening its economy starting the late 1990s, China fueled a broad economic expansion than paid for a much bigger and more powerful military.
Japan’s economy meanwhile barely has grown at all, with obvious implications for Tokyo’s own military outlays.
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WNU Editor: Japan is trying to catch-up .... Japan Builds Up Its Military To Face China (May 23, 2020).
