Japan to boost military with 2 aircraft carriers

JAPAN will get its first aircraft carriers since World War II and buy dozens of fighter jets under a new defense plan approved yesterday.

The new five-year defense plan calls for the upgrade of two existing helicopter carriers so that they can launch fighters, and is the latest in a series of steps under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to boost Japan’s military.

Abe’s government argues the efforts are necessary given growing defense challenges in the region, including tensions with North Korea, and particularly “strong concerns” about China’s military power.

But the move is controversial, with critics arguing it shifts Tokyo further away from its commitment to strictly defensive capabilities under Japan’s post-World War II pacifist constitution.

“We will secure both the quantity and quality of defense capability that is necessary... to meet the rapidly changing security environment,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a regular press briefing yesterday.

“We believe this is within ... what is allowed under the constitution.”

The five-year plan approved yesterday assumes record defense spending of 27.47 trillion yen (US$244 billion) through March 2024.

It calls for the defense ministry to upgrade two flat-top Izumo-class destroyers to enable them to launch fighters with short take-off and vertical landing abilities, like the F-35B stealth fighter.

In a separate plan also endorsed by the Cabinet yesterday, Japan said it would buy 42 F-35s over the next decade.

The F-35B variant widely considered the most likeliest candidate.

It also plans over the same period to buy 105 F-35As, a variant of the advanced jet which performs conventional takeoffs and landings and cannot be used on the retrofitted destroyers.

Local media have said the purchases could total more than 1 trillion yen (US$8.8 billion).

Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said Japan’s concerns about Beijing’s military are “not conducive to the development and improvement of Sino-Japanese relations.”

China has already expressed its “strong dissatisfaction and opposition” and “urges Japan to adhere to a purely defensive policy,” she added at a regular press briefing.

The new plans come after pledges from Japan to buy more US military equipment, under pressure from President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly complained about Washington’s huge trade deficit with Tokyo and also urged Abe to expand the country’s defensive capacity.

Abe has aggressively expanded Japan’s alliance with the United States.

He has campaigned for years to amend Japan’s pacifist constitution, arguing that it ties the hands of the country’s Self-Defense Forces even in protecting the country’s allies from attack.

“The Izumo-class destroyers will continue to serve as multi-function, multi-purpose destroyers,” Defense Minister Takeshi Iwaya said.

“This mode of operation falls within the realm of an exclusively defense-oriented policy.”