O Japan plans to add $6.75 billion (about R$37.8 billion at the current rate) to its already record annual military spending in a rush to bolster its air and maritime defenses as it becomes more concerned about the threats posed for the China and North Korea.
The Prime Minister’s Government Fumio Kishida approved on Friday (26) the disbursement as part of a supplementary budget. While such additions to defense spending are common, the 774 billion yen that lawmakers must pass is the highest amount ever, according to Japan’s Ministry of Defense.
“As the security environment around Japan worsens at unprecedented speed, our urgent task is to accelerate the implementation of various projects,” said the Ministry of Defense in its spending proposal.
The cash injection will allow Japan to upgrade, three months ahead of schedule, surface-to-air missile launchers on islands off the shore of the East China Sea and Patriot PAC-3 missile batteries elsewhere that are the bottom line of defense against any North Korean warhead that approaches the country.
A China’s growing pressure on Taiwan is causing nervousness in Japan because Beijing’s control of the island would bring Chinese forces within 100 kilometers of Japanese territory and threaten the main maritime trade routes that supply Japan with oil and other products. The move would also give China unrestricted access bases west of the Pacific Ocean.
The extra spending will also allow Japan to more quickly acquire anti-submarine missiles, maritime patrol planes and military cargo jets, the Defense Ministry said.
The additional military spending comes after Kishida’s ruling party included in its October election pledges a goal of nearly doubling defense spending to 2% of gross domestic product (START).
For decades, the pacifist nation has maintained a policy of keeping defense spending within 1% of GDP, easing concerns both at home and abroad about any resurgence of militarism that led Japan to Second World War.
The additional spending plan approved by the Kishida government on Friday also includes prepayments to defense companies for equipment to help them deal with outages in the pandemic of Covid-19 that affected their finances.
The proposed supplementary spending combined with approved defense spending for the year to March 31 amount to about 1.3 percent of Japanese GDP.
*(Translated text. Click here to read the original, in English)
Reference: CNN Brasil
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