Japan approves long-range weapons to counter growing threats from rivals

Japan on Friday unveiled a new national security plan that signals the country’s biggest military buildup since World War II, doubling defense spending and veering from its pacifist constitution in the face of growing threats from regional rivals.

In an early evening televised address in Tokyo, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said the government had approved three security documents – the National Security Strategy (NSS), the National Defense Strategy, and the Defense Force Development Plan – to bolster Japan’s defense capabilities amid an increasingly unstable security environment.

The new measures include provisions that would enable Japan to possess “counterstrike capabilities,” the ability to directly attack another country’s territory in the event of an emergency and under specific circumstances, Kishida said.

The Prime Minister earlier in December instructed his defense and finance ministers to secure funds to increase Japan’s defense budget to 2% of the current GDP in 2027, according to Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada.

In taking the new defense initiatives, Japan is bending the interpretation of its post-World War II constitution, which put constraints on its Self-Defense Forces in that they can only be used for what their name implies, defending the Japanese homeland.

But Tokyo is facing its most hostile security situation in decades.

With its defense overhaul, Japan describes one of those rivals – China – as its “biggest strategic challenge,” public broadcaster NHK reported Friday.

Long-time rival China has been growing its naval and air forces in areas near Japan while claiming the Senkaku Islands, an uninhabited Japanese-controlled chain in the Sea of Japan, also known as the East Sea, as its sovereign territory.

Agencies