Political turmoil is growing in Tokyo, where opposition leaders have submitted a no-confidence motion accusing Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party of running a slush fund with money allegedly raised through tickets sold for party events.

In one sense, the fight underscores the vibrancy of democracy in Japan, a key U.S. military treaty ally. In another, it’s unsettling given the detrimental impact it could have on expanding U.S. efforts to deepen diplomatic, economic and military cohesion with allies on China’s periphery. Washington Times Asia Editor Andrew Salmon recently homed in on U.S. support for Tokyo’s plan to vastly expand its defense budget and improve relations with South Korea, another major U.S. ally in the region. 

Mr. Salmon highlighted the problem of political scandals brewing in both South Korea and Japan, the latter of which was also recently shook by the news it has been surpassed by Germany as the world’s third-largest economy. We’ll continue to track the situation ahead of Mr. Kishida’s upcoming state visit to Washington.

Chinese military leaders are speeding up the deployment of nuclear forces, in a sign that Beijing is shifting from a strategy of minimum deterrence, according to Air Force Gen. Anthony J. Cotton, the commander of the U.S. Strategic Command.

Gen. Cotton also warned in testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee Thursday that nuclear war dangers are increasing because of strategic cooperation between China and other U.S. adversaries, notably Russia, North Korea and Iran. Air Force Gen. Stephen N. Whiting, commander of the Space Command, also testified that China’s space weaponry poses a strategic threat to American satellites. GOP Sen. Tom Cotton disclosed during the hearing that Beijing’s nuclear arsenal has expanded by more than 100% since 2012, and that the Pentagon estimates it will increase by 500% before it is through.

National Security Correspondent Bill Gertz covered the hearing, reporting separately that China is advancing its domestic, dual-use biological research capabilities with applications for germ warfare programs. He cites a new assessment from the CCP Biothreats Initiative think tank claiming recent virology studies “demonstrate that China is now able to operate its own dual-use virology research agenda on-shore and without international inputs or considerations.”

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin tried to convince lawmakers that the nation’s security was not put at risk as he was rushed into intensive care during an undisclosed hospital stay last month. Lawmakers on the House Armed Services Committee didn’t buy it.

Pentagon Correspondent Mike Glenn covered the hearing Thursday — the first opportunity for lawmakers to question the private and notoriously press-averse Mr. Austin, 70, over the lack of transparency about his time at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. The White House, Congress and Pentagon colleagues were kept out of the loop for days about Mr. Austin’s Dec. 22 prostate cancer treatment and the complications that sent him back to the hospital on Jan. 1.

The House Judiciary Committee’s GOP Chairman Jim Jordan says he’s been trying for months to get to the bottom of why the Border Patrol has been cutting through the razor wire Texas laid along the Rio Grande to try to deter illegal immigration. Now the committee has slapped Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas with a subpoena demanding information, reports The Times’ Stephen Dinan, who separately offers a deep dive on the competing visits that President Biden and Republican front-runner Donald Trump just made to the U.S.-Mexico border.

Houthis rebels in Yemen are not merely another Iranian proxy militia, according to Emily Milliken at the American Foreign Policy Council (AFPC), who writes that it wasn’t until the Saudi-led military coalition invaded Yemen in March 2015 to confront the Houthis that Iran really began to ramp up its sponsorship of the group.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Hezbollah may be in Yemen directing Houthi maritime operations, but there’s “no guarantee that Tehran could stop the group’s aggression in the Red Sea even if it wanted to,” Ms. Milliken writes, arguing that the Houthis “still act autonomously” and are “far from a totally owned subsidiary of Iran.” Take the Houthi cross-border attacks against the United Arab Emirates in January 2022, carried out despite a recent rapprochement between Iran and the UAE, Ms. Milliken writes. The “Houthis have seized on the Israel-Hamas war as an opportunity to bolster their popularity and recruit new forces. “So far,” she writes, “it’s working.”