Japan to raise military spending to new record
Investment in air defence to counter perceived threat from China and North Korea
Japan will increase its military spending for an eighth consecutive year to a record high as it invests in ballistic missile and air defence to counter a perceived threat from China and North Korea.
The national budget for the year to March 2021, unveiled on Friday, included a 1.2 per cent increase in defence to ¥5.31tn ($48.6bn) alongside a jump in social security spending to provide support for the ageing population and free childcare.
The administration has increased defence spending steadily since Shinzo Abe came to power, boosting it by a total of 13 per cent from the trough in 2012, although that is dwarfed by the military build-up in China. Japan’s defence spending remains around 1 per cent of gross domestic product, which is low by global standards.
In a recent interview with the Financial Times, Taro Kono, the Japanese defence minister, said that a lack of transparency in China’s military spending added to “global anxiety” over its intentions.
The defence budget marked a further shift in spending towards advanced air defence capabilities and the acquisition of US military equipment, rather than shipbuilding or investment in ground forces.
“We’re putting in place a highly effective defence capability, both in terms of strengthening our capacity to deal with the national security environment and efficient management of defence spending,” said Yoshihide Suga, chief cabinet secretary.
Japan will buy nine F-35 fighters from the US in the budgetary year at a cost of ¥107.4bn, including its first six of the short take-off F-35B version, which can operate from small aircraft carriers and island airstrips.
It will invest in maritime patrol aircraft and air-to-air refuelling capacity: both useful in projecting power around the disputed Senkaku Islands, known to China as the Diaoyu.
Japan is weighing how to replace its F-2 aircraft once they start leaving service in 2035 and the budget allocates ¥28bn to start work on a new domestic fighter programme. The programme will be split between initial work on aircraft design and research on the systems integration capability Japan would need to build a fighter by itself.
The Trump administration is pushing Japan to choose a US company as its partner for the future fighter rather than working with BAE Systems of the UK. Japanese defence officials said a new fighter should be developed “under our leadership” and that their options remained open.
The budget reveals how Mr Abe’s conservative government is increasing both taxes and spending as it tries to sustain economic growth and deal with pressing problems in both national and social security.
Japan’s regular budget for the 2020 fiscal year is separate from the $121bn stimulus package announced this month, although much of the spending will occur in the same period.
“Following the basic principle of the Abe administration that there can be no fiscal stability without economic growth, we continue to reform spending in pursuit of both,” said Mr Suga at a press conference after the cabinet agreed the budget.
Mr Suga said that interest costs, exceptional spending and transfers to Japan’s regions had declined, but the use of revenues from a recent increase in consumption tax to provide free education for children and support for the elderly would mean a total spending increase of ¥1.7tn to a record high.