The Self-Defense Forces are suffering from a chronic manpower shortage and struggling to recruit new members as Prime Minister Fumio Kishida forges ahead with plans to fundamentally enhance the nation’s defense capabilities.
With a Taiwan contingency increasingly more plausible, Taiwanese lobbies in Japan are calling for the government to pass a version of the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA), emulating the US precedent. Such a measure would surely enable Tokyo to make formal and regular contact with Taipei for dialogue, consultation, policy coordination and planning in military security. This would fill the missing link of the trilateral US-Japan-Taiwan security ties, rendering a US military defense of Taiwan more feasible through the support of the US-Japan alliance.
Yet, particular caution should be exercised, as Beijing would probably view the move as a serious challenge to