​Japan’s defense ministry requested a record new annual budget on Wednesday, stressing that the world is facing “the biggest challenges since World War II”, with direct reference to Russia and China, AFP and Agerpres reported.

Tokyo is seeking, in particular, to improve its cruise missile capabilities, equip itself with armed drones and develop hypersonic missiles.

Japan’s military spending has already grown almost steadily over the past decade, but it will increase in the coming years amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Beijing’s growing pressure on Taiwan.

The international community is facing “the biggest challenges since the Second World War” and “what is happening now in Europe can happen” in the Asia-Pacific region, the Ministry of Defense emphasized on Wednesday.

It is therefore asking for a budget of ¥5.59 trillion (€40 billion) for the 2023/2024 fiscal year, which begins on April 1 next year, equivalent to a 2% increase over the original budget for the current fiscal year. The final total is likely to be higher, as it was in the current fiscal year, which finally topped 6 trillion yen after repeated additions.

Japan wants to double its defense budget

The ruling Liberal Democratic Party (PLD, nationalist right) aims to bring the defense budget to 2% of GDP within five years, to reach 10 trillion yen (72 billion euros at current exchange rates).

Such a jump could put Japan in third place in the world in terms of military spending, after the United States and China.

Until now, Japan had followed an unspoken rule that military spending was limited to about 1 percent of GDP. Japan hosts numerous American bases and is under the United States’ nuclear umbrella, but given its pacifist 1947 constitution it cannot have its own army and its military investment is theoretically limited to defense.

However, these restrictions are beginning to be contested, and an old PLD draft to revise the Constitution to clarify and expand the missions of the Japan Self-Defense Forces has recently returned to discussion.

Tensions between Japan and Russia

A territorial dispute over the Kuril Islands, which Russia claims as its own and which Japan calls its “Northern Territories”, has prevented Tokyo and Moscow from reaching a peace agreement that would formally end World War II hostilities and further escalated tensions. between Tokyo and Moscow after the start of the war in Ukraine.

Russia ended talks on a formal peace treaty with Japan on March 21 after Tokyo imposed broad sanctions against it over its invasion of Ukraine, following the lead of Western powers.

In a diplomatic document released on April 22, Tokyo’s foreign ministry called four small islands in the northern archipelago “illegally occupied” by Russia after Japan revoked the most-favored status granted to Russia two days ago.

The two countries have also expelled each other’s diplomats since the start of the war in Ukraine and escalating tensions over the Kuril Islands.

Japan announced on May 24 that it had sent fighter jets into the air after Russian and Chinese jets simultaneously approached its airspace on the final day of the Quad alliance meeting in Tokyo, which was also attended by US President Joe Biden.

A day later, a Moscow deputy suggested that the authorities rename the Sakhalin region on the island of the same name, which is controlled by Russia, to the “Russian Islands”.