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Posted on 04/22/2026 8:56:20 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Japan for the first time has deployed ground troops to the Balikatan exercise, a series of multidomain drills staged across the Philippine archipelago. Participation by about 1,000 Japan Ground Self-Defense Force (JGSDF) Soldiers augments the annual training that began decades ago as a Philippines-United States exercise and now involves about 20 nations.
Japan Self-Defense Forces (JSDF) personnel previously attended Balikatan as observers and in noncombat roles focused on humanitarian assistance and disaster response (HADR). They participated in a maritime drill in 2025.
A reciprocal access agreement between Manila and Tokyo, which took effect in September 2025, allows JSDF and Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) personnel to operate in each other’s territory for exercises and other missions. It also strengthens collective deterrence along the first island chain, a strand of archipelagoes off Asia’s east coast that stretches from Japan to Indonesia and is a vital line of defense for the U.S. and its Allies and Partners.
The JGSDF deployment to Balikatan highlights deepening defense ties between Manila and Tokyo, The Diplomat magazine reported in March 2026. Japan, the Philippines and their longtime mutual ally, the U.S., increasingly coordinate maritime and defense initiatives amid evolving regional security challenges, particularly in the South China Sea.
Manila repeatedly has condemned Beijing’s actions in the part of the sea that Filipinos call the West Philippine Sea. The China Coast Guard’s increasingly aggressive maneuvers include ramming, blocking, firing water cannons and directing lasers at Philippine fishing and government vessels operating lawfully within the Philippines’ internationally recognized exclusive economic zone.
Japan, meanwhile, has faced frequent territorial incursions by China’s maritime forces in the East China Sea, including around the Japan-controlled Senkaku Islands. Tokyo also is concerned by China’s expanding military presence in the region.
Japan’s increased role in Balikatan reflects its shared interests with the Philippines in promoting regional stability and freedom of navigation. Australia, too, is deploying troops and air and naval assets to the exercise, and France also is participating. Other nations are sending observers.
Balikatan, which means “shoulder to shoulder” in Filipino, is the largest joint military exercise conducted by the Philippines and the U.S. “With the participation of Japan, this will expand the scope of our defensive operations,” said Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr., the AFP’s chief of staff. “We are now working not only with the United States and Australia in preparing to defend the Philippine archipelago, but also our common areas.”
The 2026 iteration, from April 20 through mid-May, expands the exercise’s scope and intensity and addresses a range of potential contingencies. It emphasizes logistics, rapid deployment, and emerging domains such as cyber and space, along with maritime security, amphibious operations and HADR. AFP and U.S. troops will build a multipurpose structure for relief efforts in Carmen, Davao del Norte, as part of the exercise.
Throughout March and early April, multinational service members and civilians transported and pre-positioned structures, vehicles, weapons and supplies across the Philippines.
About 420 JGSDF troops also are taking part in the annual Salaknib exercise featuring Philippine and U.S. forces. Also held in the Philippines, Salaknib’s first phase ran April 6-17, with phase two following Balikatan in May and June. It includes about 4,400 Philippine troops, 2,800 U.S. personnel, and smaller contingents from Australia and New Zealand.
Japanese forces also are expected to train with Philippine and U.S. Marines during the Kamandag exercises in the Philippines in June and July 2026, The Japan Times newspaper reported.
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I hope no helmeted Jap infantry takes to peeking through the windows at the old folks homes in Manila.
If you just woke up after an 80-year nap and saw Japanese Troops on the ground in the Philippines, you might think you were living in a nightmare, except this time there hopefully won’t be any Bataan Death Marches or an American General announcing “I shall return”...
Times change.
Given the choice, were we better off with Imperial Japan or Communist China? I think in a lot of ways China is trying to do the exact same thing the Japs tried to do with the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere.
“If you just woke up after an 80-year nap and saw Japanese Troops on the ground in the Philippines, you might think you were living in a nightmare”
The Bataan Death March was small potatoes compared to what they did to the civilians in the Battle of Manila. It seems the massacre is mostly forgotten.
Same as the massacre by American soldiers of hundreds of Philippino citizens over a hundred years ago.
Sounds like a lying communist prick is your source. A Google search couldn’t find this. Fake. Anyway, even if it was true it doesn’t excuse what the Japs did.
[Sounds like a lying communist prick is your source. A Google search couldn’t find this. Fake. Anyway, even if it was true it doesn’t excuse what the Japs did.]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_war_crimes#Philippines
Rapid pacification after conquest can only be accomplished with exemplary slaughter. Starting with the 20th century, atrocity has been described in the West as a species of abnormal psychology, either sociopathy or psychopathy. But the ugly reality is that most of these commanders are just normal everyday people doing what needs to be done to break the will of the conquered, to get them used to the new ruling power.
Alexander killed the men of the Persian capital, sold the rest not because he was crazy. In the average year, a place can barely feed itself. Many of his troops had to go back to farming, to sow crops and bring in harvests. They couldn’t be permanently mobilized to deal with insurgents, and they were few in relation to the people they conquered. So any place that resisted conquest behind city walls had its men killed and the rest sold as slaves, to encourage others to surrender or fight in the open.
The Japanese were amateurs in violence terms. Around the time of the Civil War, in quelling a rebel movement headed by a man who claimed literally to be Jesus’s brother, the Chinese may have caused as many as 70m dead. The Union and Confederate numbers pale by comparison. The bloodcurdling violence, documented by en scene Westerners, both European and American, is recounted in Stephen Platt’s book “Autumn in the Heavenly Palace”, makes the Japanese occupation look like a walk in the park. Both sides killed without compunction, perhaps because the losing side could expect to be exterminated.
[Sounds like a lying communist prick is your source. A Google search couldn’t find this. Fake. Anyway, even if it was true it doesn’t excuse what the Japs did.]
Based on historical accounts and studies of this period, here is a breakdown of the points mentioned:
- Rebel Leader’s Claim: The rebellion was led by Hong Xiuquan, a failed civil servant who believed himself to be the younger brother of Jesus Christ, sent to overthrow the Qing Dynasty and establish the “Taiping Heavenly Kingdom”.
- Death Toll Estimates: While the commonly cited death toll in literature is roughly 20–30 million people, some demographic studies, particularly those analyzed by Chinese scholars, suggest that the total population loss—including deaths from war, famine, and disease—could be as high as 70–100 million.
- Violence and Brutality: The conflict was characterized by extreme, totalistic violence, including widespread massacres of civilians and opposing soldiers by both sides. Westerners witnessing the aftermath reported entire regions being depopulated, with rivers choked with corpses.
- Comparison to Japanese Occupation: The Taiping rebellion was a 14-year, internal, total war where, as noted in the prompt, losing meant potential extermination. While the Japanese occupation of China (1937–1945) was undeniably brutal (e.g., the Rape of Nanking), the sheer scale and intensity of internal destruction during the Taiping Rebellion is often highlighted by historians for its unprecedented devastation.
- American Civil War Comparison: The conflict happened simultaneously with the American Civil War but resulted in a death toll estimated to be at least 30 to 100 times higher.
To get a sense of how vicious this war was, note that in 1850, before the war began, China’s population was 400m. A century later, that population was once again 400m. In that interval, the US population had gone from 23m to 150m.
It was getting the Japanese army OFF the islands that was the issue last time.
You need to look in the mirror to find a lying communist prick. Any normal person knows how to look up history. American soldiers did indeed do massacres of Filipino citizens, one of them was a town of many women and children, all slaughtered by American soldiers. The history is there. You're acting like a racist pig. No culture is immune from excessive atrocities. My Lai comes to mind (mass killing of unarmed Vietnamese civilians by Americans, not too long ago. Hundreds of years ago, Chinese/Mongol soldiers were slaughtering Japanese civilians, and nailing Japanese women to their ships to frighten the Japanese populace. Wars between China and Japan have existed for hundreds of years. Korea was caught in the middle of many conflicts. My dad was an US Army officer in occupation forces, immediately after WWII, and saw the devastation we inflicted on Tokyo; the USA was triumphant. Why don't you learn history, and not rely just on simple Google searches.
Very true, no culture is immune from atrocities in war. My wife is Chinese-American, born here. But her mom and other relatives barely escaped China when the communists took over, communist soldiers in the process killing others who stood in their way. Chinese killing Chinese. Crap happens to innocents in war.
I’m defending my country from your smears but to you that makes me the lying communist prick. It’s your bogus source so obscure even google can’t find it. So what if your dad was in Tokyo. They got what they deserved. My dad was in the Battle of Manila. He saw first hand what the Japs did there. Your claims Americans committed atrocities doesn’t excuse the Japs for what they did.
You are sadly deluded, thinking you’re defending your country by ignoring reality. That is not defense, it is bigotry. Bigotry that creates more hostility and creates repeats of war and killing. That’s why there will never be peace on Earth if a future generation wants payback on a former enemy. Armenians versus Turks, where millions were slaughtered etc. Your statement of a “bogus source” is proof of your blindness, where many historical documents prove that atrocities were committed by American troops. I have personally spoken to Russian survivors imprisoned in China by Japanese troops. They gave up the hatred. Germans killed millions, but hatred against them is over. My dad, responsible for the care of thousands of Japanese citizens in Tokyo immediately after WWII gave up the hatred. Why can’t you, especially since your generation wasn’t there.
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