Japan Will Buy a Lot More F-35 Stealth Fighters The move comes and Tokyo seeks to modernize its air force in the face of North Korea and China. Japan has decided upon making a massive, $23 billion F-35 stealth fighter purchase as part of a specific and decided strategic plan to counter Chinese and North Korean threats in Asia and replace its aging, yet high-performing, fleet of F-15J fighter jets. In total, Japan appears to be buying nearly seventy F-35As and forty-two F-35Bs as part of a collective multi-year effort to overhaul its air fleet of existing, decades-old F-15Js and F-4s, a story ...