Japan unveils biggest military build-up since World War II

Tokyo, December 16

In a major break from its strictly self-defence-only postwar principle, Japan adopted a national security strategy on Friday declaring plans to possess preemptive strike capability and cruise missiles within years to give itself more offensive footing against threats from neighbouring China and North Korea.

Changes 1956 policy

• Japan’s defence spending through 2027 will increase to about 2% of its GDP to nearly $320 billion
• This puts an end to Japan’s 1956 government policy that shelved counterstrike capability

A squadron of Chinese navy ships sailed through straits near Japan into the Western Pacific this week, while Beijing on Friday blasted Tokyo’s adoption of a new national security strategy.

The destroyers Lhasa and Kaifeng, and a replenishment ship, sailed through the Osumi Strait in southern Japan, while a Dongdiao-class surveillance ship with the hull number 796 sailed through the Miyako Strait south of Okinawa, all arriving in the Western Pacific by Thursday.

With China, North Korea and Russia directly to its west and north, Japan “faces the severest and most complicated national security environment since the end of the war,” the strategy said, referring to World War II. It named China as “the biggest strategic challenge” — before North Korea and Russia — to Japan’s effort toward ensuring the peace, safety and stability for itself and the international society.

Possession of the strike-back capability is “indispensable” as deterrence to discourage enemy attacks, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told a news conference Friday, calling it “a major change to Japan’s postwar security policy.” “When threats become reality, can the Self-Defence Force fully protect our country? Frankly speaking, the current (SDF capability) is insufficient,” Kishida said.

Under the strategy, Japan’s defence spending through 2027 will increase to about 2% of Japan’s GDP to total some 43 trillion yen ($320 billion), 1.6-times that of the current five-year total.

Kishida said the new target sets the NATO standard for defence spending, a budget increase that has been his policy priority since taking office in October 2021.

Japan says its exclusive self-defense policy is unchanged, but “long-range cruise missiles represent a threshold capability that will fundamentally change Japan’s approach to deterrence,” said Christopher Johnstone, a senior advisor and Japan chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said. — Agencies