Japan feels threatened and is realigning its national security strategy. The defense budget will be doubled.
Japan is realigning its security policy and massively arming itself militarily. In a clear departure from previously exclusively defense-oriented security doctrine, the US ally wants to put itself in a position to eliminate enemy missile positions before the missiles are even fired. The defense budget is expected to nearly double to 2% of gross domestic product over the next five years.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s government decided on Friday as part of the revised national security strategy. The country intends to spend US$320 billion on this, according to the strategy document published on Friday.
The backdrop is China’s growing thirst for power in the region, as well as North Korea’s missile tests and nuclear program. China’s military posture is “the greatest strategic challenge” of all time, the paper said. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could set a precedent and prompt China to do something similar to Taiwan. The Beijing government does not rule out the use of military force in the case of Taiwan, which it considers part of China. The security situation in Japan is deteriorating very quickly, warned Kishida.
“Will not become a military power”
Missile defenses are no longer sufficient to deal with the “significant increase” in missile arsenals in countries such as China and North Korea, according to the Japanese government. However, he wants to maintain a “policy exclusively oriented towards self-defense”. Japan will not become a military power.
Since 1976, Japan has pledged not to spend more than one percent on armaments. Now, among other things, missiles whose range extends to China will be acquired and a new fighter jet will be developed. To finance the Japanese government wants to raise taxes. But this is also controversial within the ruling party. Details are still open.
In Japan, the armed forces are subject to major legal barriers. The Japanese constitution was drafted after 1945 by the victorious US power. In 2015, Kishida’s predecessor, Shinzo Abe, made the biggest change in Japanese defense policy since the army was rebuilt in 1954. Despite violent public protests, he promoted a new military doctrine that, for the first time since World War II, World War, allowed Japanese soldiers to fight abroad again. The reform introduced the right of “collective self-defense” to support attacked allies even if Japan itself is not attacked. Previously, the Japanese armed forces could only be used in self-defense.
(APA/dpa)