By Pang Zhongpeng
According to foreign media reports, Japan's Sanae Takaichi administration is considering significantly increasing its five-year defense build-up budget starting in April 2027 to 70 trillion to 80 trillion yen (equivalent to approximately US$440 billion to US$500 billion), nearly doubling the current plan.
If post-war Japan's long-pursued "exclusively defense-oriented policy" and the baseline of keeping defense spending within 1% of GDP represent "Version 1.0," and the establishment during Fumio Kishida's tenure of raising defense spending to 2% of GDP by FY2027 marks "Version 2.0," then the plan under Takaichi to double the budget once more while seeking large-scale unmanned combat systems signifies that Japan's defense plan is accelerating its evolution toward a more offensive "Version 3.0." It can be said that Japan is shedding the constraints of the post-war system at an astonishing speed.
Japan's substantial increase in defense spending has a complex domestic and international background. First, the United States has long pressured its allies to assume more defense responsibilities, and Japan is attempting to pander to the US' so-called "Indo-Pacific strategy" to play a more prominent military role in the first island chain.
Second, Japanese right-wing forces have long hyped up the "deterioration of the surrounding security environment" and deliberately exaggerated the so-called "China threat" as an excuse to break through the post-war "exclusively defense-oriented policy" and revise the three security documents, attempting to bind the nation entirely to the chariot of "remilitarization."
Third, to seek asymmetric operational advantages, Japan is pouring massive funds into cutting-edge combat domains.
Fourth, it aims to create a closed loop of interests for its "military-industrial complex." Major financial conglomerates in Japanese business circles, such as Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Kawasaki Heavy Industries, have long pushed the government to treat the defense industry as a pillar of national strategy. These defense enterprises urgently need large orders to expand their military business scale. In response to the demands of military-industrial conglomerates, the Japanese government is attempting to implement "military Keynesianism," stimulating the economy through the dangerous cycle of "expanding armaments in the name of the economy, and using armament expansion to feed back into the military industry."
However, Japan's militaristic plan faces severe practical constraints. Chief among them is Japan's fragile public finances and high debt crisis. As of the end of March 2026, Japan's total government debt—including government bonds, borrowings, and short-term government securities—reached 1,343.84 trillion yen (about 8.5 trillion U.S. dollars), an increase of 20.13 trillion yen over the end of the previous fiscal year, setting a historic high for ten consecutive years. Against this backdrop, forcibly expanding armaments is akin to drinking poison to quench thirst, easily triggering a systemic debt crisis.
Second, arms expansion severely squeezes resources for public livelihood. To raise military funds, the Japanese government did not hesitate to cut social security expenditures on healthcare and pensions, while planning to levy a "special income tax for defense," sparking strong public protests demanding "rice, not weapons," with over 60% of respondents opposing tax hikes for military expansion. Undoubtedly, Japan's drastic military expansion is bound to trigger strong geopolitical backlash effects.
Japan's substantial increase in defense spending will have profound and catastrophic negative impacts on the international situation. On the one hand, it will completely break the strategic balance in the Asia-Pacific region and light the fuse for a new arms race. Japan's development of long-range strike capabilities and lifting of restrictions on arms exports will not only severely impact the post-war international order, but could also drag neighboring countries into the vortex of conflict.
On the other hand, Japan forcibly links China's Taiwan region with its own security and cooperates with external forces in bloc confrontation, severely eroding the political foundation of China-Japan relations. Such acts of shifting troubles onto neighbors and creating confrontation can never bring genuine security; instead, they will plunge Japan into a geopolitical hazard, repeating the mistakes of history.
The evolution of Japan's defense plan toward "Version 3.0" is by no means a simple defense policy adjustment, but a dangerous signal of a qualitative shift in national identity toward a "war system." The international community must remain highly vigilant against the dangerous schemes of Japanese right-wing forces and resolutely curb the reckless moves of "neo-militarism."
(The author is an associate research fellow at the Institute of Japanese Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences)
Editor's Note: Originally published by huanqiu.com, this article is translated from Chinese into English and edited by the China Military Online. The information and opinions in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of eng.chinamil.com.cn.