Japan Wisely Builds Up Military to Counter China, but It May Not Be Enough

Japan is engaged in a significant military buildup by boosting domestic defense spending, refining its national security strategy, and strengthening multilateral security partnerships with its allies, chiefly the United States.

The military buildup is designed to deter China’s increased aggression toward the Japanese mainland and islands.

Japan is paying special attention to the defense of the Senkaku Islands, where China has been conducting routine coercive military incursions. This tactic seeks to steadily pressure Japan on China’s unlawful claim to the Japanese-administered islands.

Japan also is reaching out to other countries in the region. Last year, Japan, South Korea, and the United States committed to strengthening their trilateral security relationship. The three nations’ investments in defensive capabilities and streamlined interoperability are critical to countering the communist regimes of China and North Korea in the region.

Japan is in the second year of a five-year Defense Capability Buildup Program. The Japanese Ministry of Defense’s budget request for fiscal year 2025 totaled 8.54 trillion yen, about $59 billion.

That budget puts Japanese defense spending at 1.6% of gross domestic product, which will need to accelerate to fulfill the 2022 National Security Strategy’s plan to spend 2% of GDP on defense by fiscal 2027.

Japan would do well to accelerate its spending plans and to reach (and then surpass) this defense spending goal more quickly, given the immediate nature of the security challenge posed by China.

Japan is prioritizing the procurement of standoff capabilities necessary to effectively hold an invasion force at bay from within Japanese territory. The fiscal 2025 budget funds creation of complex satellite arrays to detect long-range threats and new long-range missile upgrades, including the Joint Strike Missile, for the Japanese fighter fleet.

America and Japan also are accelerating joint planning. The U.S. reportedly is proposing temporary missile bases along Japan’s Nansei island chain in the event of a Taiwan contingency with China, which would compound the advantage provided by the new standoff capabilities.

Japan’s National Security Strategy also allocates significant funding to the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force, a crucial investment for a potential conflict with China that largely would be naval. This includes acquisition of transport ships, naval missiles and anti-ship missiles, new Aegis guided-missile destroyers, and reorganization of Japan’s surface fleet.

Increased defense industrial base cooperation between American allies and Japanese industry is a net benefit for both countries as well.

Japanese shipbuilding is highly advanced and efficient, to the extent that U.S. Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro requested Japanese investment in American shipbuilding in 2024.

Also this year, the United States and Japan agreed on a landmark coproduction deal of Patriot missiles and Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missiles, or AMRAAM, in a move that should help fill the stocks of both militaries and reduce production costs.

And Japanese officials are negotiating a plan to contract the maintenance, repair, and overhaul of U.S. Navy vessels in Japanese shipyards.

The plan could help relieve America’s domestic maintenance backlog and allow our shipyards to focus on revitalizing our Navy.

Japan is stepping up by strengthening its military and planning to accelerate the military buildup in coming years, but faster action would be welcomed. Given the near-term challenge posed by China’s own aggressive military buildup, the more Japan can do now, the better.

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