News Analysis Japan announced earlier this month that it will be sending 500-600 military personnel to the southwestern island of Ishigaki, which lies close to Taiwan, in a move that experts say will solidify the country’s commitment to defending Taiwan from Chinese Communist Party (CCP) aggression. The development is also part of a larger shift in Japanese policy towards increased international military cooperation aimed at countering the CCP, experts say. The new units, expected to be operational by 2022, will be drawn from various elements of Japan’s Self-Defense Forces (SDF) and include both surface-to-ship and ground-to-air missiles. A former senior official for the Australian Department of Defense familiar with Japan’s defense policy spoke to the Epoch Times about the move on the condition of anonymity. “I think that, while the Japanese government maintained the ‘self-defense’ mentality, underlying that has always been the thinking that if North Korea or China, or Russia …