China rejected criticism from Japanese Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi regarding the accuracy of its military spending, accusing Tokyo of using these arguments to justify the expansion of its own armed forces.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry stated in response to a query from Bloomberg News that Japan’s claims are “inconsistent with the facts” and “full of flaws”, and are also intended to deceive the international community. Beijing emphasized that it has already made public detailed information about its defense budget, and its scale, structure, and use are open and transparent, so there is nothing to criticize.
Growing Defense Budgets and Regional Tensions
Shinjiro Koizumi made his remarks this week in his first published interview with foreign media as Defense Minister. According to him, Japan will take a transparent approach to investing in new methods of warfare, including drones and artificial intelligence. Koizumi’s comments indicate that Tokyo is strengthening its public criticism of China.
The forecast for Japan’s military and defense spending for the current fiscal year is around 10.6 trillion yen (approximately $66.1 billion). This is less than a quarter of China’s official defense spending figure. In 2022, Tokyo abandoned its long-standing informal limit on defense spending of 1% of gross domestic product (GDP), stating that by 2027 its target defense spending would be 2% of GDP. Japan’s current defense spending is slightly below the 2% GDP level, if measured against the 2022 GDP, and more than 2 trillion yen short of the 2025 GDP. Japan is under pressure from the US to further increase spending to 3.5% of GDP, which would meet Washington’s demands on its other allies.
Beijing, for its part, criticized Tokyo’s steps to expand its right to collective self-defense, develop medium- and long-range strike capabilities, and relax arms export restrictions. The Chinese Ministry stated that “Japan’s right-wing forces are accelerating the country’s ‘remilitarization’ and promoting ‘new militarism’, which threatens regional peace and stability”.
Source: Bloomberg