Japan’s Ministry of Defense on 15 July published its 2025 Defense White Paper, warning that China’s accelerating military activity from Japan’s south-western coasts through the Pacific now represents “an unprecedented and the greatest strategic challenge” to the country’s security. The report cites a first confirmed airspace incursion by a Chinese military aircraft last August, Chinese fighter jets closing to within 30 metres of a Japanese patrol plane this month, and a three-fold rise in Chinese warship transits near Japan’s southern islands over the past three years. The ministry says Japanese fighter jets scrambled 704 times in the last fiscal year—464 launches responding to Chinese aircraft and 237 to Russian aircraft—underscoring what Defense Minister Gen Nakatani calls the most severe security environment since the Second World War. The White Paper also flags China’s growing cooperation with Russia, persistent missile advances by North Korea, and the risk that tensions over Taiwan could disrupt vital sea lanes for Japan. Tokyo plans to raise defence outlays to 2 percent of GDP by 2027 and field long-range cruise missiles as part of a wider reinforcement of forces across the south-western island chain. Beijing dismissed the document as hyping a “China threat”, with Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian saying Japan was interfering in China’s internal affairs and had received a formal protest. Despite the pushback, the White Paper maintains that China’s expanding reach and the combined posture of Beijing, Moscow and Pyongyang require Japan and its allies to prepare for a more contested Indo-Pacific.