Japan faces a pressing need to enhance its military capabilities with a heightened sense of urgency, Japan’s defense minister emphasized on Tuesday. This call to action follows a fresh governmental assessment highlighting the increasing threats from China, North Korea, and Russia.
Amidst these growing concerns, Japan has already begun to escalate its military budget and strengthen security alliances across Asia. This includes deploying missile systems to remote islands and pursuing advancements in “counter-strike” abilities, alongside relaxing constraints on the export of military equipment.
Shinjiro Koizumi underscored in the annual defense report’s preface the importance of Japan’s commitment to enhancing and transforming its defense systems with an unprecedented sense of urgency.
In the Asia-Pacific region, Koizumi noted that both China and North Korea are significantly bolstering their military forces. Furthermore, strategic partnerships between China and Russia and between Russia and North Korea are becoming more robust.
The updated defense document specifies that China is increasing its regional military activities, extending its influence well beyond the initial island chain to a second chain surrounding Japan.
It listed a series of incidents in 2025, including activities by Chinese aircraft carriers and the “unusual close approach” by Chinese aircraft to Japanese planes in two incidents in June and July.
Japanese jets scrambled 595 times in the year to 31 March 2026, including 366 sorties against Chinese aircraft and 214 for Russian planes.
This compares to 704 the previous year and was the fewest since at least 2021.
Japan decided in April to lift its self-imposed ban on weapons exports, but the white paper highlighted problems in the country’s production base that could jeopardise procurement and innovation.
Strengthening regional ties
Koizumi also said that he and US counterpart Pete Hegseth had “exchanged candid views” on the “unwavering” US-Japan alliance, while also increasing security cooperation with the Philippines, Australia, and South Korea to realise a “a free and open Indo-Pacific”.
“As the security environment becomes increasingly and rapidly severe, what is required now is to strengthen resilience against crises all across the entire Indo-Pacific region,” Koizumi said.
“In order to do so Japan will build and expand multilayered networks among allies and like-minded countries, and enhance interconnectivity with like-minded countries and others in every area.”
The link between defence and future prosperity comes as Takaichi’s administration prepares a new national security strategy.
Military experts expect it to call for further spending increases aimed primarily at deterring China from starting a conflict with Taiwan that could also draw Japan into a prolonged war.
Biggest military buildup since WWII
China has expressed alarm at what it sees as a return to “new militarism” by Japan, with relations worsening since Japan’s hawkish new Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi made comments about Taiwan last year.
Beijing reacted furiously in November when Takaichi said Japan could deploy its Self-Defense Forces if a Chinese attack on Taiwan also threatened Japan’s survival, demanding that she retract what it called an “egregious” remark.
Tokyo has assembled a patchwork of tax increases, spending reforms and one-off revenues to finance Japan’s largest military buildup since World War Two, which has pushed defence-related spending to 2 per cent of gross domestic product. But Takaichi has yet to explain clearly how she would pay for a further expansion without adding pressure on Japan’s already stretched public finances.
Her government secured a record 122.3 trillion yen ($1.1 trilion) budget for the year to March 2027 and later added a 3.1 trillion yen ($28.3 billion) supplementary package to cushion households and businesses from higher energy costs, underscoring the competing demands on the public purse.
Much of the new defence spending so far has gone on missiles capable of striking targets more than 1,000 km away. A significant share of any further increase is expected to go toward drones and other unmanned weapons of the kind deployed extensively by Ukraine in its war with Russia.
— With additional reporting by the Reuters news agency.