China or Japan: Which wields more military clout?
| Beijing
There is a widespread assumption that China is Asia鈥檚 leading military power.
Not so fast. In fact, that spot belongs to Japan. Yes, Japan.
The Japanese postwar Constitution may 鈥渇orever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation鈥� and its military forces may carry the benign-sounding title of 鈥淪elf Defense Forces.鈥� But 鈥測ou don鈥檛 want to mess with them,鈥� as Larry Wortzel, a leading analyst of Asian military affairs, put it recently.
In terms of simple numbers, Japan lags far behind. It has just one-tenth the number of men in uniform that China does, four times fewer combat aircraft, and its fleet is about half the size of China鈥檚 in terms of tonnage.
But when it comes to training and technology, the key elements in modern warfare, the Japanese easily outclass the Chinese. If the territorial dispute over the Diaoyu/Senkaku islands ever sparked 鈥渒inetic action鈥� as the military strategists put it, Japan would come out on top.
Another consideration that would give Chinese generals pause for thought: the United States would almost certainly step into any armed conflict on Japan鈥檚 side. And though China has been building up its armed forces as fast as it can recently, it is 鈥渁t least two decades behind the United States in terms of military technology and capability,鈥� a recent report by the Council on Foreign Relations concluded
