“The prime minister is making a clear, unambiguous strategic statement about Japan’s role as a security provider in the Indo-Pacific,” Rahm Emmanuel, the US ambassador to Japan, said in a statement. “They put a capital “D” in front of Japan’s resistance,” he said.
Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen said she hoped for greater defense cooperation with Japan, meeting Mitsuo Ohashi, president of the Japan-Taiwan Exchange Association, in Taipei on Friday.
“We look forward to Taiwan and Japan continuing to make new cooperation achievements in various fields such as national defense and security, economy, trade and industrial transformation,” Tsai was quoted as saying by the President’s Office.
China accused Japan of making false claims about China’s military activities in the new security strategy, according to a statement from its embassy in Japan.
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“The Ukraine war has shown us the need to be able to put up a fight, and that’s something Japan hasn’t been prepared for so far,” said Toshimichi Nagaiwa, a retired general in the Air Self-Defense Force. “Japan is starting late, it looks like we are 200m behind in the 400m sprint,” he said.
China’s defense spending overtook that of Japan at the turn of the century, and now its military budget is more than four times larger. Military sources have said the most immediate problems for Japan to deal with are too few weapons and a shortage of spare parts, which have grounded planes and put other military equipment out of action.
Kishida’s plan would double defense spending to about 2% of GDP over five years, surpassing the self-imposed 1% spending limit since 1976.
This would increase the budget of the Ministry of Defense to one-tenth of all public spending at current levels, and would make Japan the world’s third-largest military spender after the United States and China, based on current budgets.
This agility will provide work to Japanese military equipment manufacturers such as Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI), which is expected to lead the development of three of the long-range missiles that will be part of Japan’s new missile force.
MHI will also build Japan’s next jet fighter with BAE Systems plc and Leonardo in a joint project between Japan, Britain and Italy announced last week.
Tokyo allocated $ 5.6 billion for this in a five-year defense program.
Foreign companies will also benefit. Japan says it wants ship-launched US Tomahawk cruise missiles made by Raytheon Technologies to be part of its new deterrent force.
Other items on Japan’s military shopping list over the next five years include interceptor missiles for ballistic missile defense, attack and reconnaissance drones, satellite communications equipment, Lockheed Martin F-35 stealth fighters, helicopters, submarines, warships and heavy-lift transport jets. Huh.