Japan said in its annual defense report that China may move up its plan to build a "world-class military" by the mid-21st century as Beijing is building up and modernizing its armed forces, a draft of the paper showed Tuesday.
In the draft 2023 edition of the defense white paper, Japan expressed grave concerns regarding increasing Russian and Chinese military activities in waters around the country, saying they seem "to clearly intend a show of force to our country."
The draft points out that China and Russia have conducted a total of five joint bomber flights near Japan since July 2019.