TOKYO—It used to be the more or much less provocation that has change into familiar to Japan. On June 18, a Chinese submarine passed within just a few miles of Japan’s territorial waters shut to the island of Amami-Oshima. Tokyo mobilized three destroyers and surveillance plane to narrate that it didn’t stick round.
Breaking precedent, Eastern Defense Minister Taro Kono publicly identified the submarine as Chinese and said the incident used to be fraction of a pattern of China’s assertiveness that incorporates a recent border conflict with Indian troops and a push to…