ABC:
TOKYO — Japan’s Cabinet on Friday approved a record defense budget plan exceeding 9 trillion yen ($58 billion) for the coming year, aiming to fortify its strike-back capability and coastal defense with cruise missiles and unmanned arsenals as tensions rise in the region.
The draft budget for fiscal 2026 beginning April is up 9.4% from 2025 and marks the fourth year of Japan’s ongoing five-year program to double annual arms spending to 2% of gross domestic product.
The increase comes as Japan faces elevated tension from China. Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said in November that her country’s military could get involved if China were to take action against Taiwan, the self-governing island that Beijing says must come under its rule.
Takaichi’s government, under U.S. pressure for a military increase, pledged to achieve the 2% target by March, two years earlier than planned. Japan also plans to revise the ongoing security and defense policy by December 2026 to further strengthen its military.
Japan has been bolstering its offensive capability with long-range missiles to attack enemy targets from a distance, a major break from its post-World War II principle limiting the use of force to own self-defense.
The current security strategy, adopted in 2022, names China as the country’s biggest strategic challenge and calls for a more offensive role for Japan’s Self-Defense Force under its security alliance with the U.S.
The new budget plan allocates more than 970 billion yen ($6.2 billion) to bolster Japan’s “standoff” missile capability. It includes a 177 billion-yen ($1.13 billion) purchase of domestically developed and upgraded Type-12 surface-to-ship missiles with a range of about 1,000 kilometers (620 miles).
The first batch of the Type-12 missiles will be deployed in Japan’s southwestern Kumamoto prefecture by March, a year earlier than planned, as Japan accelerates its missile buildup in the region.
In part due to Japan’s aging and declining population and its struggles with an understaffed military, the government believes unmanned weapons are essential.
To defend the coasts, Japan will spend 100 billion yen ($640 million) to deploy “massive” unmanned air, sea-surface and underwater drones for surveillace and defense under a system called “SHIELD” planned for March 2028, defense ministry officials said.
