It’s a real revolution taking shape in Japan. Military spending is expected to reach a record 7,740 billion yen (48.7 billion euros) in 2024-2025. This is in any case what the government asked the Diet, the Japanese Parliament, Thursday, August 31. The Liberal Democratic Party having a majority there, everything suggests that this budget will be adopted.
The remilitarization of Japan is not new. “This is the twelfth consecutive year that the budget of the armies has been revised upwards, since the mandate of Shinzo Abe”, explains to L’Express Céline Pajon, Japan specialist at the French Institute of International Relations (Ifri). The increase in military spending for 2023-2024 was even greater, by 30% compared to the previous budget. But Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, in power since 2021, is accelerating this strategy. The objective, unveiled last December, is to bring military spending to 1% to 2% of GDP by 2027, like NATO member countries.
This budgetary crescendo, encouraged by the United States, consecrates the rupture of Japan, pacifist, with its recent history and its Constitution. Since the end of the Second World War, it has included an article by which “the Japanese people forever renounce war as the sovereign right of the nation”. The country still has an army, but qualified as “self-defense forces”.
Triple front
In recent years, rising tensions in the Indo-Pacific region have led the government to develop these forces. But ironically, it is from Europe, more than 8,000 kilometers from Tokyo, that the real turning point comes, with the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. “This war has broken a psychological lock: the risk of a high-intensity conflict is now much more tangible”, observes Céline Pajon.
Japan is first seeking protection from China, whose military budget for 2023 is 211 billion euros, the second largest in the world. The Japanese government fears an invasion of Taiwan by its Chinese neighbor, which would jeopardize its security. Some islands in the south of the archipelago, such as Yonaguni, are only a hundred kilometers from Taiwan, and friction has already arisen between the two countries on the subject. In August 2022, after US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taipei, China held military exercises and fired several ballistic missiles, five of which landed in Japanese waters. “China’s actions this time have a serious impact on peace and stability in the region,” Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi said.
Another point of contention, the Senkaku Islands, located just a little further from the Taiwanese coast. Admittedly uninhabited, these are important strategic points endowed with a strong potential in hydrocarbons and resources for fishing. Tokyo and Beijing have been fighting over them since 1971 and Chinese coast guards regularly patrol the area. “China is today clearly identified as the number one security risk for Japan”, summarizes Céline Pajon, who also points to Russia, which is increasingly close to Beijing, as a source of concern.
To this already complex picture is added North Korea. With its numerous nuclear tests and its missile launches flying over the Japanese archipelago, it remains a major threat. Japan often raises its voice against Kim Jong-un, as on August 23, when the Prime Minister’s Office accused North Korea of having fired a ballistic missile passed over the country, “an act which could have serious consequences on the life and property of the Japanese population”. For Céline Pajon, “the country is therefore faced with the prospect of a triple front, facing nations all equipped with nuclear weapons.”
Means of counter-attack
Destroyers, drones, ammunition stocks, helicopters or even a new joint headquarters… Thanks to the explosion of military credits, projects are multiplying for the Japanese army. Since China has an arsenal capable of saturating the Japanese missile defense system, Tokyo wants to triple its interception and strike capacity. For several months, the government of Fumio Kishida has been seeking to buy 500 American Tomahawk missiles, whose range reaches more than 1,000 kilometers. The army also wants to increase the range of its surface-to-sea anti-ship missiles from 200 km to 1,200, and could acquire hypersonic missiles. The speed of the latter exceeds 6,000 km/h and their unpredictable trajectory makes them much more difficult to intercept.
A massive investment is also announced in cybersecurity, with the aim of employing 5,000 people there by 2027, compared to 890 today. But hiring personnel is complicated, as in other military sectors. This is the ambiguity of Japan’s relationship to the war. “If the public opinion, worried, supports these reforms, the self-defense forces encounter many difficulties in recruiting, and the careers offered remain unattractive for young people”, observes Céline Pajon. A shift that risks curbing the great ambitions of the country of the Rising Sun.