Japan Self-Defense Forces in order to make it illegal for JSDF personnel/staff to participate in collective insubordination or to command forces without authority or in violation of orders, which was stated to be the reason why Japan was involved in China in World War II. A Credit Suisse survey published in 2015 ranked Japan as the world’s fourth most-powerful military behind the United States, Russia and China. In May 2017, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe set a 2020 deadline for revising the Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution, a clause in the national Constitution of Japan outlawing war as a means to settle
China–Japan relations forces in part due to the First and Second Opium Wars and Anglo-French Expeditions from the 1860s to the 1880s. According to Chinese government, the relationship between China and Japan has been strained at times by Japan's refusal to acknowledge its wartime past to the satisfaction of China. However, according to Japanese government, the expansion of People's Liberation Army and its assertive actions have been damaging the bilateral relation. Revisionist comments made by prominent Japanese officials and some Japanese history textbooks regarding the 1937 Nanking Massacre have been a focus of particular controversy. Sino-Japanese relations warmed considerably after Shinzo Abe