Japan breaks its pacifist tradition by approving the largest rearmament since World War II
Japan is launching a historic rearmament that will break with its pacifist tradition inherited from the postwar period: the Government has just approved new Defense guidelines that include spending 43 trillion yen (€ 295,000,000,000 approx), raising military spending from 1% that had been maintained since the 1960s, to 2% of GDP over the next five years, which will make the Asian country the third largest military spender in the world after the United States and China.
Tokyo had been warning for months of its intention to strengthen its defense capabilities.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, after becoming the first Japanese leader to attend a NATO summit, held last June in Madrid, and welcoming the Alliance to strengthen its involvement in the Indo-Pacific region , began a campaign in public forums to advocate for his country’s need to rearmament following Russia’s special operation in Ukraine, security concerns over the ever-threatening North Korea and China’s war games around Taiwan.
It had been almost a decade since Tokyo had published a national security strategy.
In the document that has come to light this Friday, one of the main novelties is what they have called “counterattack capacity”, which translates as providing the Japanese army with the necessary means to reach enemy territory in the context of a armed conflict.
A total turn in his policy that directly clashes with Article 9 of the pacifist Constitution, by which the army -250,000 active troops and another 60,000 in reserve- can only act for self-defense.
