- Japan’s Cabinet approved a 770 billion yen ($6.8 billion) request for an extra defense budget to purchase of missiles, anti-submarine rockets and other weapons amid rising concern over the escalation of military activities by China, Russia and North Korea.
- The request brings Japan’s military spending for the current year to a new high of more than 6.1 trillion yen ($53.2 billion), up 15% from 5.31 trillion yen in 2020.
- The Defense Ministry says its “defense power reinforcement and acceleration package” is designed to speed up deployment of some of the key equipment from the 2022 budget request.
- The goal is to beef up Japan’s defenses against North Korea’s missile threat and China’s increasingly assertive maritime activity around remote Japanese southwesternislands.
