When you ask your standard-issue American navalist about the Western Pacific, what usually comes to mind is distance. The map in their mind, often split in two, goes from one wide field of view to the other.

The distance speaks to time, sustainment and how that effects ship and fleet design. It also gives an open feeling – wide open spaces +/- under American or American-leaning control most of the way over.

Books have and will be written about this challenge, and in fits and starts about the Chinese Communist Party’s view from the mainland looking east.

As this is a blog, no reason to go too far … but what if you could make your point with a simple map?

Move your mind west; focus; rotate left 90-degrees left; center right to the east of the Japanese island of Kyushu.

That my friend, is the Chinese Communist Party’s view of the Pacific.

How does that change how you view your near abroad? How does that inform your concerns about your access to sea? How does that inform your fleet architecture?

What mood does that set?

If you have some time, I would also recommend a reading of the source of that map; the Japan Ministry of Defense/Self-Defense Forces, Defense of Japan, Section 2.