Japan should increase its military spending in the face of the “grim reality” of threats from China and North Korea, a senior member of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) said yesterday during a visit to Taiwan.
LDP Policy Research Council chairman Koichi Hagiuda said that since World War II, Japan has “walked the path of peace” and that path would not change in the future.
“However just reciting the word peace is of course not enough for our peace to be protected,” Hagiuda, who served as Japanese minister of economy, trade and industry until August, told a forum on Taiwan-Japan relations.
Photo: REUTERS
As Tokyo prepares next year’s budget, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has announced plans to lift defense spending to about 2 percent of GDP within five years, from about 1 percent now.
That would take Japan’s annual defense budget to more than ￥11 trillion (US$80.54 billion) from the current ￥5.4 trillion, giving the country the world’s third-largest military budget after the US and China at their current levels.
Hagiuda pointed to China’s massive increase in military spending, as well as North Korean missile tests, as reasons for Japan’s plan to raise its defense budget.
“In the face of such a grim reality, half measures have no meaning at all,” he said.
Japan’s defense capabilities are necessary to protect lives and peace, and must be developed immediately, not within five years, he added.
“It’s important to show clearly that we have sufficient capacity to make any would-be aggressor think twice,” he said.
China staged military drills near Taiwan in August after a visit to Taipei by US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, including launching five missiles into the sea close to Okinawa, within Japan’s exclusive economic zone.
Japan hosts major US military bases, including on Okinawa, which would be crucial for any US support during a Chinese attack on Taiwan.
The US is bound by law to provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself, although there is ambiguity about whether it would send forces to help Taiwan in a war with China.
Addressing a think-tank in Taiwan in December last year, former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe said Japan and the US could not stand by if China attacked Taiwan, and Beijing needs to understand this.
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