Tokyo must boost its military at a “radically different pace” than in the past to counter Beijing’s growing capacity, Japan’s defense minister said in an interview published yesterday.
Japanese Minister of Defense Nobuo Kishi said that the gap between the Japanese military and the Chinese military was “growing by the year,” in an interview with the Nikkei daily.
“We must increase our defense capabilities at a radically different pace than in the past,” he said, citing China’s military spending as well as new areas of warfare such as space, cyber and electromagnetic warfare.
Photo: AFP
Japan’s defense spending has tended to hover at about one percent of GDP, but Kishi said that spending would be guided by needs rather than caps.
“The security environment surrounding Japan is changing rapidly with heightened uncertainty,” the Nikkei quoted him as saying. “We will properly allocate the funding we need to protect our nation.”
Japan’s post-war constitution limits the scope of its military to defensive power, and efforts to boost capacity have sometimes been controversial domestically.
Kishi’s comments come with Japan increasingly concerned about the regional security environment and particularly China’s growing assertiveness.
The military balance between Japan and China has “leaned heavily toward China in recent years, and the gap has been growing by the year,” he told the paper.
Kishi also said that Japan considers issues related to Taiwan “as our own problem,” as China increases pressure on Taipei.
Japan has been more vocal in the past few months about Chinese moves in regional waters, and particularly the presence of coastguard ships around disputed islands in the East China Sea.
South Korea has adjusted its electronic arrival card system to no longer list Taiwan as a part of China, a move that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said would help facilitate exchanges between the two sides. South Korea previously listed “Taiwan” as “Taiwan (China)” in the drop-down menus of its online arrival card system, where people had to fill out where they came from and their next destination. The ministry had requested South Korea make a revision and said it would change South Korea’s name on Taiwan’s online immigration system from “Republic of Korea” to “Korea (South),” should the issue not be
Tainan, Taipei and New Taipei City recorded the highest fines nationwide for illegal accommodations in the first quarter of this year, with fines issued in the three cities each exceeding NT$7 million (US$220,639), Tourism Administration data showed. Among them, Taipei had the highest number of illegal short-term rental units, with 410. There were 3,280 legally registered hotels nationwide in the first quarter, down by 14 properties, or 0.43 percent, from a year earlier, likely indicating operators exiting the market, the agency said. However, the number of unregistered properties rose to 1,174, including 314 illegal hotels and 860 illegal short-term rental
Both sides of the Taiwan Strait share a political foundation based on the “1992 consensus” and opposition to Taiwanese independence, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) today said during her meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). Both sides of the Strait should plan and build institutionalized and sustainable mechanisms for dialogue and cooperation based on that foundation to make peaceful development across the Strait irreversible, she said. Peace is a shared moral value across the Strait, and both sides should move beyond political confrontation to seek institutionalized solutions to prevent war, she said. Mutually beneficial cross-strait relations are what the
ECONOMIC COERCION: Such actions are often inconsistently applied, sometimes resumed, and sometimes just halted, the Presidential Office spokeswoman said The government backs healthy and orderly cross-strait exchanges, but such arrangements should not be made with political conditions attached and never be used as leverage for political maneuvering or partisan agendas, Presidential Office spokeswoman Karen Kuo (郭雅慧) said yesterday. Kuo made the remarks after China earlier in the day announced 10 new “incentive measures” for Taiwan, following a landmark meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) in Beijing on Friday. The measures, unveiled by China’s Xinhua news agency, include plans to resume individual travel by residents of Shanghai and China’s Fujian
RSS