The Hindustan Times of India carried the news, as also has Singapore’s The Straights Times, and not to be left out, The Australian is also reporting of this.
The American media? Not so much.
So what is this news I speak of? As reported by all three above sources, the Japanese government has authorized 500-600 troops of the Japanese Ground Self-Defense Forces to be permanently stationed on the westernmost islands by the end of Fiscal Year 2022.
Specifically, Japanese forces will man anti-aircraft and anti-ship missile batteries on Ishigaki Island.
Keep in mind that the Taiwanese capital city of Taipei is 1,300 miles from Tokyo, but Ishigaki is a mere 180 miles from the Taiwan northern coast. Undoubtedly, the Taiwanese are breathing a sigh of relief, especially with the Communist Chinese saber-rattling and still threatening to invade.
As reported by VOAnews.com;
An annual Japanese defense white paper in mid-July calls Taiwan important to domestic and international security for the first time, and it adds that “it is necessary that [Japan] pay close attention to the situation with a sense of crisis more than ever before.”
“It would not be too much to say that it could relate to a survival-threatening situation” if Taiwan ran into trouble, [Japanese Deputy Prime Minister Taro] Aso said, as quoted by Kyodo.
Japanese State Minister of Defense Yasuhide Nakayama last month warned during a think tank speech that Sino-Russian collaboration could pose a threat and advised protecting Taiwan “as a democratic country.”
Not only armed with one of the most technologically advanced conventional militaries on Earth, there have been rumors that Japan has “a nuclear bomb in the basement.” In a 2016 report by the Atomic Heritage Foundation;
As recently as 2014, anonymous statements from government officials confirm that Japan has “a bomb in the basement,” i.e. the capability to produce a nuclear weapon in a short space of time.