TOKYO - Japan's military has drawn up a defence plan that refers to the possibility of an invasion by China, the Asahi Shimbun national daily said on Monday.
In one scenario, drawn up at a time of tense relations between Tokyo and Beijing, China occupies the disputed islands known as the Senkakus in Japan and the Diaoyu islands in China.
In another, the plan refers to the possibility of an attack by China on U.S. or Japanese military facilities in Japan in the event of a war between China and Taiwan, the newspaper said.
The report comes weeks after a separate Japanese defence white paper referred to the need to monitor Chinese military modernisation, sparking an angry reaction from Beijing.
Japan and China are at loggerheads over a range of issues from rights over natural resources in the East China Sea to the way World War Two history is taught in Japanese schools.
Earlier this month, Japan said it had sighted five Chinese warships in the East China Sea, where China is developing a gas field close to an area also claimed by Japan.
The two governments are set to resume senior official level talks on the disputed gas resources later this week, but a Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Monday that no date had been fixed.
Little progress was made at the previous round of talks in May. Japan wants China to stop drilling in the area and share information on the resources. China has dismissed criticism by saying it is drilling in undisputed coastal waters.
The Defence Agency said plans analysing threats to Japan and determining how troops should be deployed to deal with them were drawn up annually. A spokeswoman declined to comment on the contents of the plan cited in the Asahi report.
However, the top-secret plan, drawn up by senior officers in what Japan calls the Ground Self-Defence Force, says there is only a slight possibility of an attack by China, the paper said.
Details in the plan of threats to Japan up to 2008 also cover a possible attack by North Korea and an "extremely slight" possibility of an attack by Russia, the Asahi said.
The plan describes the possibility of a terrorist attack as "very slight," the paper said
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