Shinjiro Koizumi

Japan’s Minister of Defense - Coordinating international messaging on Chinese pressure while overseeing Japan's air-defense response

What began with Chinese carrier fighters lighting up Japanese jets with radar near Okinawa has mushroomed into a full-spectrum crisis. After China and Russia sent bombers circling Japan, the US flew B-52s with Japanese fighters over the Sea of Japan. Then Beijing struck back economically: on January 6, 2026, China banned all dual-use exports to Japan's military—rare earths, aerospace alloys, advanced electronics—citing Tokyo's "egregious" Taiwan stance. Meanwhile Japanese lawmakers visited Taiwan in droves through December, the Liaoning carrier returned home after six days and 260 sorties, and Japan briefed NATO on what it calls China's deliberate intimidation.

Updated Jan 9

Minister of Defense, Japan - Front-line manager of the radar crisis, publicly challenging Beijing’s version of events.

Chinese J-15 fighter jets flying from the aircraft carrier Liaoning repeatedly locked targeting radar onto Japanese F-15s near Okinawa on December 6, forcing Japan to scramble jets and lodge an emergency protest. Days later, Washington publicly accused Beijing of destabilizing behavior and vowed its commitment to Japan was “unwavering,” turning a dangerous cockpit decision into a trilateral showdown.

Updated Dec 11, 2025

Minister of Defense - Oversees Self‑Defense Forces’ disaster response deployments

On December 8, 2025, a magnitude 7.6 offshore earthquake struck at 23:15 JST off the coast of Aomori Prefecture in Japan’s Sanriku region, shaking Hachinohe at a maximum ‘upper 6’ on Japan’s intensity scale and triggering tsunami warnings forecasting waves up to three meters for parts of Hokkaido, Aomori, and Iwate. Japan’s Meteorological Agency (JMA) and local authorities ordered or urged tens of thousands of coastal residents to evacuate; recorded tsunami heights ultimately stayed in the 20–70 cm range, and by the early hours of December 9 the initial warnings were downgraded to advisories, with at least 23 injuries reported but no deaths or large-scale structural collapse.

Updated Dec 11, 2025

Minister of Defense, Japan - Leads Japan’s military response and public framing of the radar incident

In early December 2025, China’s Liaoning aircraft carrier strike group sailed through waters near Japan’s southwest island chain and into the western Pacific, conducting roughly 100 take-offs and landings of J-15 fighters and helicopters over two days between Okinawa’s main island and Minamidaito and then east of Kikai Island. Japan’s Self-Defense Forces say Chinese fighters repeatedly directed fire-control radar at Japanese F-15s shadowing the group near Okinawa, a step that can signal preparations to fire weapons. Tokyo summoned China’s ambassador Wu Jianghao to protest what it called a dangerous and regrettable act, while Beijing denied the radar targeting and accused Japanese aircraft of harassing normal training.

Updated Dec 11, 2025

Japan’s Minister of Defense - Leading Japan’s military and diplomatic response to the radar lock incidents

On December 6, 2025, two Chinese J-15 carrier-based fighter jets from the aircraft carrier Liaoning intermittently illuminated their fire-control radar on Japanese Air Self-Defense Force (ASDF) F-15 fighters over international waters southeast of Okinawa, in two encounters lasting roughly three minutes and about thirty minutes respectively. Japan’s defense minister Shinjiro Koizumi denounced the radar lock-ons—which militaries treat as the step immediately before weapons launch—as “dangerous” and “extremely regrettable,” and Tokyo lodged a formal protest with Beijing. Analysts noted this was the first publicly acknowledged fire-control radar lock between Chinese and Japanese military aircraft, echoing a 2013 episode when a Chinese frigate locked weapons radar on a Japanese destroyer near the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands.

Updated Dec 11, 2025