Author here. Java 9 adds a new module system where module descriptors are introduced to explicitly demarcate the public API of a module, and to express its dependencies on other modules. Example of a module descriptor:

  module mymodule {
    exports mymodule.pkga;
    exports mymodule.pkgb;

    requires someothermodule;
  }

What happens is that every package except the ones exported are accessible to other modules. Non-exported packages are encapsulated, not even reflection can break through that barrier. The requires statements are used by the Java compiler and runtime to verify the current configuration of modules resolves correctly.

Obviously there's lots of more detail to go into. Of course I recommend you check out my upcoming book (early release available) for that: http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920049494.do

In short, Java makes a great step forward wrt. modularity. When regular JARs transition to modular JARs (adding a module descriptor), many more checks and balances are in place than are currently possible with the classpath.