Exclusive | The Iran Strikes Bought Taiwan Time. A Japanese General Says Use It

After U.S. and Israeli forces launched precision strikes against Iran, Chinese military aircraft that had been appearing almost daily in airspace around Taiwan nearly vanished. That disappearance, according to a retired three-star general of the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force, is not a sign of weakness from Beijing — it is a forced reordering of strategic priorities.

Kiyoshi Ogawa (小川清史), retired lieutenant general of the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force (JGSDF) and former commanding general of the Western Army, argues that Washington is systematically dismantling the global partner network China has spent years building — first Venezuela, then Iran, and most likely Cuba next. China's strategic depth, he says, is being carved away piece by piece, leaving Beijing with little capacity to sustain high-intensity pressure on Taiwan at the same time.

The breathing room Taiwan now enjoys, Ogawa cautions, is real — but it is being paid for by China's allies.

Ogawa gave an exclusive interview toThe Storm Media  on March 12, following a lecture he delivered via video link to students at Tamkang University on the topic of "China's Movements and Japan's Defense."

Ogawa was precise about the nature of the U.S.-Israeli operation: this is not a general war, but a tightly scoped suppression campaign. American targeting has concentrated on three areas — Iran's long-range missile stockpiles, its surface naval forces, and its nuclear and missile development capabilities. U.S. submarines have already sunk Iranian frigates, he said, and he does not rule out future special operations strikes against nuclear-related facilities.

Israel's focus, he said, has been the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. "The IRGC has long conducted assassinations and terrorist operations through proxies — it is the most direct existential threat to Israel," Ogawa said. "Both sides currently assess that progress is on track. This conflict will not drag on for long."

The relative silence of the international community has a specific explanation, Ogawa said — one that has received little public attention.

"According to a contact I have in the United Arab Emirates, roughly two days before the U.S. and Israel acted, there was clear intelligence that Iran was planning to strike Israel first." That intelligence has not been officially confirmed, he acknowledged, but it is consistent with the fact that the UAE and other Middle Eastern states quietly moved to high alert before the operation began.

The strikes therefore carried the character of a preemptive prevention, and key regional actors understood this. "The international community has reservations about what the U.S. and Israel did, but there is also a widespread sense of 'there was no other choice,'" Ogawa said. "That is the biggest difference between this crisis and past conflicts in the Middle East."

China's unusual silence, Ogawa argued, is the most geopolitically significant signal in the entire situation. The sequence of U.S. actions is itself a message: Venezuela first, then Iran, and Cuba likely next. These three countries are pivotal nodes in China's global architecture — energy supply links, reliable diplomatic votes, and strategic counterweights to U.S. influence in Latin America and the Middle East.

"Every action the United States takes in its own interest is, in essence, a reduction of China's strategic space," Ogawa said. "American interests and Chinese interests are almost entirely opposed."

Beijing cannot respond openly, he assessed, because Xi Jinping (習近平) is in the middle of a peak period of military purges. Senior figures across key departments, including the Rocket Force, have continued to fall. Internal instability makes external confrontation acutely dangerous. "China is experiencing a genuine sense of crisis right now, but it cannot afford to act rashly. It has no choice but to keep its head down."

On the sudden near-disappearance of Chinese military aircraft around Taiwan, Ogawa's explanation centers on prioritization. "Taiwan itself will not proactively attack the mainland, so the immediate threat it poses to Beijing is relatively low. It is therefore not at the top of China's urgent response list right now."

By contrast, strategic partners including Iran and Venezuela are hemorrhaging. Stanching those losses and rebuilding the ally network damaged by U.S. strikes is Beijing's most pressing task.

"China's attention and resources have to be concentrated on salvaging these critical nodes," Ogawa said. "It does not have the bandwidth to continue high-intensity pressure on Taiwan at the same time. This creates a temporary breathing space for Taiwan — but it absolutely does not mean China has abandoned its strategic objectives toward Taiwan. The priorities have simply been forced to shift."

On the threat of an Iranian closure of the Strait of Hormuz, Ogawa was dismissive of what he regards as market overreaction. He assessed Iran's capacity for sustained counter-operations as extremely limited. "Their navy has virtually no underwater warfare capability — from a professional standpoint, it is quite amateurish. Even their land-based missile positions are fully visible to aerial surveillance. They cannot hold out for long."

Japan, he noted, holds 254 days of strategic petroleum reserves — sufficient to sustain operations for two to three months, well beyond what a crisis of this scale would require.

Taiwan is a different matter. He observed that Taiwan's inadequate oil reserves have already drawn criticism domestically, and he was direct about what should follow. "Taiwan should seriously consider accelerating its stockpiling, including purchasing oil from Japan. This is a concrete and practical energy security issue that needs to be addressed."

The campaign against Iran carries a direct lesson for Japan's own defense buildup, Ogawa said — and it is one that is easy to overlook. "Quantity matters more than technology."

Japan's acquisition of Tomahawk cruise missiles and upgraded Type-12 surface-to-ship missiles is the right direction, he said. But the Iran operation illustrates that even a coordinated preemptive strike by the U.S. and Israel failed to fully suppress Iran's missile arsenal. Iran retained sufficient capacity to strike back and inflict losses.

"To truly suppress an adversary's missile threat, you need enough volume to achieve saturation," Ogawa said. "No matter how sophisticated the technology, if you don't have enough missiles, the other side can still retaliate. Japan's counterattack capability program is on the right track — but if the missile numbers are insufficient, the deterrent effect will be substantially diminished. That is the hard lesson from the U.S.-Israeli operation against Iran."