The white paper went to great lengths to define China as one of the "destabilizing factors" along with Democratic People's Republic of KoreaIt highlighted "more tangible" and "acute" challenges and destabilizing factorshahabetThe legislation provides greater flexibility, responsiveness, and interoperability for training, exercises, and planning on a broader spectrum of security issues by easing restrictions on Japanese Self-Defense Force operations, including the ability to exercise collective self-defenseThis will empower Japan to be an active player at the region and global stagesThe white paper, the first after Japan's security legislation went into effect in March, played up the so-called "gray zone" situations, or neither pure peacetime nor contingencies over territory, sovereignty and economic interestshahabetIn its 2016 defense white paper, Japan interferes in the South China Sea