In Tokyo, I heard a profound sense of resignation about Japan's ability to take a larger role in providing its own defense, even among defense intellectuals. When pressed on this point, Japanese-security scholars shrug and point at both public opinion and straight-trend-line projections of Chinese military spending and argue that they could not possibly keep up. True, but mostly irrelevant. They don't need to keep up, dollar for dollar; they need to do a limited number of things well. Some of those things they currently do well, like antisubmarine warfare and surveillance, but the China side of the China-Japan balance is shifting rapidly.
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