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TOKYO, Dec. 5 (AP) – Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Monday set a new target of 43 trillion yen ($318 billion) in military spending over the next five years, 1.5 times the current level, as the country Seek defense buildup, including the use of pre-emptive strikes.
Defense Minister Koichi Hamada said Kishida told him and Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki to draw up a budget plan to increase Japan’s military spending by more than 50 percent from 27.5 trillion yen for 2023-2027.
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Hamada said the planned increase was to “resolutely ensure the pursuit of substantial strengthening” of Japan’s national defense.
The Kishida government is currently finalizing revisions to its national security strategy and medium- and long-term defense policy, which will allow the use of pre-emptive strikes in Japan’s major postwar shift in its self-defense-only doctrine. Critics say a pre-emptive strike could violate Japan’s pacifist constitution. The government says the “counterattack” capability should only be used when an enemy attack is imminent.
Three key documents and the budget are expected to be released in late December.
Over the past decade, Japan has steadily increased its international defense role and military spending. It aims to double its military budget to about 2 percent of GDP, the NATO norm, over the next five to 10 years as threats from North Korea and China’s territorial claims grow.
Kishida’s ruling party wants to double Japan’s annual defense budget to about $10 trillion ($70 billion), which would make the country the world’s third-biggest military spender after the United States and China.
A government-commissioned panel of experts said in a report last month that Japan needed to urgently strengthen its deterrent capabilities, including adding cruise missiles, interceptors and other equipment, while improving commercial ports and airfields for urgent military use.
However, for a country with an aging and declining population already battling a ballooning national debt, financing the costs required for the increase won’t be easy.
Kishida’s plan is apparently a compromise between the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s original proposal of 48 trillion yen ($355 billion) over the next five years and the Finance Ministry’s 35 trillion yen ($260 billion) proposal.
Japan’s plans for military buildup and spending increases are also a sensitive issue for many of its neighbors, including the two Koreas that fell victim to Japanese aggression in the first half of the 1900s.
At the same time, China has strengthened its claim to almost the entire South China Sea by building artificial islands equipped with military installations and airfields. Beijing also claims sovereignty over a string of Japanese-controlled islands in the East China Sea and has increased military harassment of self-governing Taiwan, which it says is part of China and can be annexed by force if necessary. (Associated Press)
(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the content body may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)
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