Defense spending boost in Japan includes U.S. arms

TOKYO — Japan’s defense spending will jump 20% to a record 6.8 trillion yen ($55 billion) next year as the country prepares to deploy U.S.-made Tomahawks and other long-range cruise missiles that can hit targets in China or North Korea under a more offensive security strategy.

The planned purchase of Tomahawks at 211.3 billion yen ($1.6 billion) is a centerpiece of Japan’s 2023 budget plan approved Friday by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s Cabinet and shows his government’s determination to rapidly arm itself with more strike capability under the new strategy.

Additionally, Japan will pay the United States 110 billion yen ($830 million) for equipment and software needed to launch Tomahawks, as well as fees for the technology transfer and staff training in the coming year, defense officials said.

The hefty budget plan, pending parliamentary approval, is the first installment of a fiveyear, 43 trillion yen ($325 billion) military spending plan under a new defense buildup also recently announced. The new spending target follows the NATO standard and will eventually push Japan’s annual budget to about 10 trillion yen ($73 billion), the world’s third biggest after the United States and China.

The budget plan comes a week after Kishida’s government announced Japan’s new National Security Strategy, stating its determination to possess controversial “counterstrike capability” to preempt enemy attacks and nearly double its spending within the next five years to protect itself from growing risks from China, North Korea and Russia and escalating fear of a Taiwan emergency.

The strategy is a historic change from Japan’s exclusively self-defense oriented policy since the end of World War II. China, with its rapid arms buildup, increasingly assertive military activity and rivalry with the U.S., presents “an unprecedented and the greatest strategic challenge” to the peace and security of Japan and the international community, the strategy stated.

Japan says counterstrike capability is constitutional if it’s in response to signs of an imminent attack. But opponents say strike capability goes beyond self-defense under Japan’s pacifist post-WWII constitution, which limits use of force strictly to defending itself.

That principle, however, was eased in 2015 by then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s constitutional reinterpretation allowing Japan to defend its ally, the United States, in what is known as collective self-defense, providing a legal basis for Japan to build up its military and expand the roles it performs.