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.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique