Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a record defense budget plan exceeding ￥9 trillion (US$58 billion) for the coming year, aiming to fortify its strike-back capabilities and coastal defense with cruise missiles and uncrewed arsenals as tensions rise in the region.
The draft budget for fiscal 2026, beginning April, is up 9.4 percent from this year and marks the fourth year of Japan’s ongoing five-year program to double annual arms spending to 2 percent of GDP.
“It is the minimum needed as Japan faces the severest and most complex security environment in the postwar era,” Japanese Minister of Defense Shinjiro Koizumi said, stressing Tokyo’s determination to pursue military buildup and protect its people.
Photo: AFP
“It does not change our path as a peace-loving nation,” he said.
The increase comes as Japan faces elevated tension from China.
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last month said Japan’s military could get involved if China were to take action against Taiwan.
Takaichi’s government, under US pressure for a military spending increase, pledged to achieve the 2 percent target by March next year, two years earlier than planned. Japan also plans to revise its ongoing security and defense policy by December next year to further bolster its military.
Japan has been bolstering its offensive capabilities with long-range missiles to attack enemy targets from a distance, a major break from its post-World War II principle limiting the use of force to its own self-defense.
The security strategy, adopted in 2022, names China as the country’s biggest strategic challenge and calls for a more offensive role for Japan’s Self-Defense Forces under its security alliance with the US.
The new budget allocates more than ￥970 billion to bolster Japan’s “standoff” missile capability. It includes a ￥177 billion purchase of domestically developed and upgraded Type-12 surface-to-ship missiles with a range of about 1,000km.
The first batch of the Type-12 missiles would be deployed in Japan’s southwestern Kumamoto prefecture by March, a year earlier than planned, as Japan accelerates its missile buildup in the region.
In part due to Japan’s aging and declining population, and its struggles with an understaffed military, the government believes uncrewed weapons are essential.
To defend the coasts, Japan plans to spend ￥100 billion to deploy uncrewed air, sea-surface and underwater drones for surveillance and defense under a system planned for March 2028, defense ministry officials said.
For speedier deployment, Japan initially plans to rely mainly on imports, possibly from Turkey or Israel.
The Japanese defense ministry, already alarmed by China’s rapid expansion of operations in the Pacific, is to open a new office dedicated to studying operations, equipment and other necessities for Tokyo to deal with Beijing’s Pacific activity.
Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Lin Jian (林劍) said the Takaichi government has “noticeably accelerated its pace of military buildup and expansion” since taking office.
“Japan is deviating from the path of peaceful development it has long claimed to uphold and is moving further and further in a dangerous direction,” Lin said.
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