The Japanese Cabinet yesterday approved a record-high military spending plan, endorsing plans to purchase pricey US surveillance drones and F-35 jets as Tokyo steps up cooperation with Washington amid China’s increasingly assertive activity in regional seas.
The ￥5.1 trillion (US$42.1 billion) proposal is part of a ￥96.7 trillion national budget for the fiscal year beginning in April, also an all-time high. The entire package requires Japanese parliamentary approval.
Military spending would rise 1.5 percent from this year, the fourth annual increase under Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who ended a decade of defense budget cuts.
Photo: AP
The defense budget is the first since Japan enacted new security legislation in September enhancing the nation’s military role and since Japan revised its bilateral defense guidelines with the US earlier in the year to allow broader cooperation between the allies.
The new security law divided Japanese public opinion, with opponents saying it would increase a possibility of Japan being embroiled in a US-led war.
Japan is bolstering surveillance and defense of its southern islands, where it has a territorial dispute with China.
The budget also includes the purchase of an advanced Aegis radar-equipped destroyer with missile-defense capability, submarine construction and sonar development.
The Japanese Ministry of Defense plans to spend ￥14.8 billion this year on some of the multibillion-dollar, multi-year purchase of three “Global Hawk” unmanned drones, as well as six F-35 jets for ￥138 billion and a Boeing mid-air refueling aircraft KC-46A at ￥23 billion.
“We believe the budget includes items that would contribute to enhancing Japan-US cooperation in the area of ISR,” Japanese Ministry of Defense official Tomoki Matsuo said, referring to information, surveillance and reconnaissance.
Japan pays ￥193 billion for about 50,000 US troops stationed in Japan under their bilateral security treaty, more than half of them on Okinawa — a major source of friction between the central government and the southern island, which is frustrated with the decades-long burden.
The cost to move some of them to Guam and a contentious plan to move the US Marine air base from the crowded Futenma area to a less-populated location on Okinawa was also added to the budget.
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