On Aug. 3, Chinese state television aired rare footage of a People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Rocket Force war game that appeared to feature the US military’s Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan, as a potential target, drawing attention and concerns of a possible conflict shaping up in the western Pacific.

According to the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the footage appeared in Winning, a CCTV documentary broadcast. During a segment on Rocket Force training, an officer is shown briefing personnel in front of a large screen displaying a partially blurred satellite image.

Despite the obscuring, the configuration of airport runways, surrounding roads, and nearby urban areas closely resembles Kadena Air Base, the report noted. “Everything you are practicing today could happen tomorrow,” the officer could be hearing telling personnel taking part in the exercise.

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The documentary did not disclose when the war game took place. Its release, however, came as part of programming marking the 99th anniversary of the founding of the PLA, adding to speculation that the footage was intended by Beijing to send a broader message, or even warning, to the region.

A critical US hub in the region

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Kadena is one of the United States’ most strategically important air bases in the western Pacific and its largest Air Force installation in East Asia. Located roughly 600 kilometers (370 miles) from Taiwan and less than 800 kilometers (500 miles) from China’s coast, the base could serve as a major forward operating hub for US forces in the event of a Taiwan Strait conflict.

Its location within the so-called First Island Chain also makes it particularly significant in US efforts to deter Chinese military expansion in the region. Kadena has long been within range of several Chinese missile systems, including the DF-16 and DF-21 ballistic missiles and the DF-17 hypersonic missile.

Tetsuo Kotani, a professor at Meikai University in Japan, said Kadena has been considered a major Rocket Force target for decades. The documentary therefore does not necessarily reveal a new Chinese strike capability, he said, but instead appears designed to signal the PLA’s resolve to both domestic and foreign audiences.

Bolstering defenses

The United States and Japan have also been preparing for such threats by strengthening aircraft shelters and air defenses, dispersing fuel and ammunition stockpiles, and improving defensive and counterstrike capabilities. Hirohito Ogi, a senior research fellow at the Institute of Geoeconomics in Japan, similarly viewed the footage as an act of strategic deterrence intended to warn Washington against intervening in a Taiwan conflict.

He said it also reflects Beijing’s continued focus on the strategic importance of Japan’s southwestern islands in a potential Taiwan contingency, and underscores the need for Tokyo to continue strengthening its defenses. Though Taiwan operates as an independent nation since its establishment in 1949, Beijing views the island as a “breakaway province,” and has vowed to reclaim it by any means necessary, even if that means resorting to military force to achieve unification, which the CCP claims as “inevitable.”

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