Japan on Friday announced a new national security strategy that will double the amount spent on the country’s military defense, breaking a decades-old precedent of spending curbs as it seeks to ways to increase military capabilities to counter China’s rising power.
The new plan, approved by the cabinet on Friday, reflects the geopolitical changes that have swept across the region since the previous version was announced nearly a decade ago. In 2013, the document described China and Russia as strategic partners. They now see Beijing’s rise as the “greatest strategic challenge” to the international order and bolster their assessment of a more belligerent Russia.
Speaking to reporters at a press conference after a cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said that Japan had reached a “turning point” that its history calls for strengthening.
“In Japan’s neighboring countries and regions, there is a clearer shift toward unilateral efforts to change the status quo by force,” he said, noting that Japan will take action. took a variety of measures, from military to diplomatic, to respond to that change.
The new strategy represents the latest step in Japan’s yearlong path toward building a more muscular and reduce its dependence about US forces. After decades of opposing the idea, recent polls show that more than half the country now supports at least some military build-up, amid China’s growing aggression against Taiwan and Russia’s war with Ukraine.
That has allowed Mr. Kishida to push for defensive measures that have even recently been seen as radical in officially pacifist Japan, including the purchase of missiles that can be used to target Enter bases in enemy territory in response to an attack.
Tetsuo Kotani, a professor of international relations at Meikai University and a senior fellow at the Japan Institute of International Relations, said: “A year ago, I could not have imagined that the Japanese people would support it. this type of security initiative.
When Japan unveiled its first national security strategy nine years ago, it identified North Korea and its nuclear program as its biggest security concern. While the North series of missile tests This year, and the country’s expanding nuclear arsenal shows that it has not yet diminished its role as a threat, its security strategy now sees China as its biggest challenge.
The 2013 document heralded that change. It was prepared as part of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s push at the time to move the country away from post-war pacifism. He called such a shift inevitable as China increases military spending and actively pursues territorial claims in the South China Sea and around the Japanese-administered Senkaku Islands.
In 2015, when Mr. Abe passed a law by Congress to expand the role of Japan’s military – known colloquially as the Self-Defense Forces – the move was widely criticized by the public. Japan’s status as the only country to renounce war.
For decades, efforts to transform Japan into a so-called normal, unfettered nation of pacifists have largely been the preoccupation of the country’s powerful right wing, which insisted that the Constitution’s limits on Japan’s military power prevented it from defending itself and properly fulfilling its role in the world. Work.
But this month, when Mr Kishida said he planned to double military spending, the debate that followed was largely focused not on whether the investment should be approved, but on how to spend it. pay for that investment.
“The people support the strengthening of the Self-Defense Forces. Hideki Uemura, a professor of international politics and security at Ryutsu Keizai University, said: “They support increasing defense spending but don’t like raising taxes.
As Japan moved to abandon its longstanding custom of keeping military spending at about 1% of its economic output, the changed stance largely followed its growing concerns about being dragged into the country. into the conflict between the United States and China over Taiwan.
In a way, Japan is still trying to tighten ties with China, its biggest export market, as it continues to seek improved relations, including last month with a meeting with China. the first face-to-face meeting between the two leaders of the two countries in three years.
But once vague anxieties about China’s potential military threats to Japan took shape in August when Beijing responded to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan with drills. military force including launching missiles into the waters near the Japanese islands.
Self-governing Taiwan, which China has long claimed as its own, lies less than 70 miles off the coast of one of Japan’s southwestern islands and is an important supplier of semiconductors serving for the country’s main exports, such as automobiles. Any future conflict over Taiwan could involve Okinawa, home to the majority of US military forces in Japan.
Japan’s spending priorities have also been informed by Ukraine’s experience against Russia’s invading forces and provoking Western support. Observing that conflict has prompted Japanese policymakers to take a closer look at some of their military’s weaknesses, particularly in cyberspace.
Brad Glosserman, a Japan policy expert and deputy director of the Center for Rulemaking Strategy in Tama, said: “The main lesson from Ukraine is if Japan hopes to get support from outside, they need to do more to protect themselves.” University.
Documents released Friday project that spending will increase by a total of 43 trillion yen, or nearly $315 billion, over the next five years, reaching an annual total of about $80 billion by 2027.
While the new budget could put Japan among the world’s top military spenders, it is only a fraction of the $801 billion the United States spent on its military in 2016. last year, or the $293 billion China spent, according to data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. The data shows that in 2021, Japan is the world’s ninth largest military spender, after Saudi Arabia.
The budget increase would go toward a variety of programs, such as strengthening public infrastructure such as airports, to ensure they can accommodate military aircraft, or improving transportation and storage. ammunition and fuel. The spending also includes subsidies to build a defense industry to help make the military less dependent on American weapons.
Many of the investments reflect concerns about a more aggressive China.
Japan has begun to fortify islands in its southwestern archipelago, in preparation for a possible conflict over Taiwan. The new installation could make it harder for Chinese naval vessels to access the Western Pacific.
The country also plans to invest in a so-called counterattack capability, promoted as a means of deterring missile attacks from China or North Korea by issuing a credible threat of retaliation. . Japan hopes to acquire around 1,000 missiles, starting with US-made Tomahawks before moving on to weapons systems of its own.
In addition, Japan will pursue a next-generation fighter in cooperation with Italy and Britain. These planes will complement Japan’s fleet of US-made F-35s in the 2030s.
The new strategy has received approval from Washington, which has long pushed Japan to take more responsibility for its defense. Japan has the largest number of American troops abroad. Increasing military spending to 2% of GDP would help Japan comply with commitments made by members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
Rahm Emanuel, the US ambassador to Japan, said the changes were a “huge milestone” for Japan and for its military cooperation with the United States.
“They are helping us put a capital D as a deterrent,” he said.
