Japanese Ground-Self Defense Force Type 90 tanks drive toward a target during the annual drill with live ammunitions exercise at Minami Eniwa Camp Monday, Dec. 6, 2021, in Eniwa, northern Japan of Hokkaido. Dozens of tanks are rolling over the next two weeks on Hokkaido, a main military stronghold for a country with perhaps the world's most little known yet powerful army.
The drills, which foreign journalists rarely have a chance to witness, will continue for nine days and include about 1,300 Ground Self Defense Force troops. On Monday, as hundreds of soldiers cheered from the sidelines and waved unit flags, lines of tanks shot at targets meant to represent enemy missiles or armored vehicles.
There's also domestic wariness over nuclear weapons. Japan, the only nation to have atomic bombs dropped on it in war, possesses no nuclear deterrent, unlike other top global militaries, and relies on the so-called U.S. nuclear umbrella. Russia's military also recently deployed coastal defense missile systems, the Bastion, near disputed islands off the northern coast of Hokkaido.
Japan has rapidly stepped up its military role in its alliance with Washington, and has made more purchases of costly American weapons and equipment, including fighter jets and missile interceptors. Under a bilateral security pact, Japan hosts about 50,000 U.S. troops, mostly on the southern island of Okinawa, which, along with Japanese units in Hokkaido, are strategically crucial to the U.S. presence in the Pacific.
Among Japan's biggest worries is China's increased naval activity, including an aircraft carrier that has been repeatedly spotted off Japan's southern coasts.
Being cancer-stricken and begging CPF Board to repay overdue debt; that which in any case cannot be done as the money had been commingled and funneled to private entity Temasek Holdings for Ho Ching to wager on unviable, untenable and ultimately, invariably doomed gambles
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