In the 2026 Defense White Paper, the first issued since the launch of the Sanae Takaichi Cabinet, the Japanese government for the 22nd straight year pushed the unfounded claim that Dokdo is its inherent territory. Separate from this claim, it for the third year in a row kept the phrase describing South Korea as an "important neighbor and partner with whom we must cooperate."
According to the 2026 Defense White Paper released by Japan's Ministry of Defense on the 4th (local time), the Japanese government, in describing the security environment of the Indo-Pacific region, stated, "The territorial issues of the Northern Territories and Takeshima (竹島), which are our inherent territory, still remain unresolved." It is a baseless assertion repeated for 22 consecutive years since 2005. "Inherent territory" is Japanese diplomatic phrasing meaning land that has never been under another country's control.
In several maps included in the voluminous white paper spanning more than 600 pages, the Ministry of Defense repeated the same claim. Japan also marked Dokdo as either a territorial dispute area or its own territorial waters on the maps titled "security environment around our country" and "surveillance and monitoring." The map showing the Korea Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) likewise labeled Dokdo as Takeshima, clinging to its territorial ambitions.
However, Japan for the third straight year emphasized the importance of South Korea as a defense cooperation partner. The white paper stated, "South Korea is an important neighboring country with whom we must cooperate as a partner in responding to various challenges in the international community." As the security environment surrounding South Korea and Japan has grown more severe, it highlighted key cases of strengthened military exchange and cooperation between the two countries, such as the restoration of shuttle diplomacy between defense Ministers and the Black Eagles' stopover in Japan. It also underscored solidarity by pointing to responding to North Korea's security threats as a core goal of trilateral cooperation among South Korea, the United States, and Japan.
In this white paper, Japan expressed a strong sense of crisis about the Northeast Asia security landscape. The Ministry of Defense warned that a grave armed conflict like the invasion of Ukraine could also occur in East Asia. Focusing on the increasingly close military moves among North Korea, China, and Russia, it placed at the front of the white paper a photo of Kim Jong-un, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Chinese President Xi Jinping together to heighten vigilance.
Japan defined China's military movements as "the greatest strategic challenge ever" and voiced concern over its military pressure on Taiwan and its expanding maritime push. Regarding North Korea, it cited the pace of its missile development and assessed it as "an even more imminent threat to security," while sounding a warning about the possibility of mid- to long-term military buildup stemming from North Korea–Russia military cooperation.
The Takaichi Cabinet added a new chapter in this year's white paper analyzing "new modes of warfare" driven by advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and drones. Experts assessed that it lays out an idea to integrate new-domain technologies such as cyber and space into security in peacetime and to secure the capability to wage protracted war through dual-use (civilian-military) technologies.