By Chen Youjun
Japan's Upper House on June 16 passed into law a bill for creating a pool of funds to cover the massive increase for Japan's plan to spend a combined 43 trillion yen ($305 billion) defense expenditures through fiscal 2027, but the funding sources remained uncertain. Such a rash advance in Japan's military expansion sent important signals.
To realize its strategic vision of becoming a "normal state" in the post-war era, the conservative political forces in Japan are actively hyping the ongoing friction between China and the US, regarding it as a strategic opportunity for Japan. They continue to adjust traditional strategies, and consider the Japan-US alliance as the primary ballast for expanding Japan's external exchanges and even maintaining its national security, intending to make breakthroughs in fields like diplomacy and security, of which realizing major breakthroughs in military expansion is considered one of the primary political tasks.
At the same time, the Kishida administration constantly caters to the demand of domestic political conservatives to maintain and stabilize the ruling position. Facing the pressure from the opposition parties and dissenters in the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan (LDP), Kishida must earn as much support as possible from the conservatives, which, after all, represent the mainstream voice in the Japanese political arena. The adoption of the special law to secure funds for defense spending is considered a political gift presented by the Kishida administration to them.
However, the law contains flaws and poses risks for the Kishida administration. For instance, it doesn't clarify the important matters such as a specific schedule for raising taxes, which are expected to be a major source of funds for increased defense spending in the future.
The ruling LDP has basically reached an internal consensus on this issue. However, its proposal of delaying the implementation of the plan from the original 2024 to 2025 or later was still rejected by opposition parties. In fact, both the ruling coalition and opposition parties are worried about the prospects of Japan's economic recovery. In spite of positive signs in recent months, the recovery of the Japanese economy faces constraints of many internal and external factors, lacking a solid foundation and a bright future due to the impact of uncertainties arising from the escalating China-US friction as well as the gloomy regional and global landscapes.
In a nutshell, the adoption and enactment of the law to create a pool of funds to cover part of a substantial increase in defense spending is undoubtedly a noteworthy milestone on Japan's road of military expansion and self military deregulation. For Japan, raising funds for defense spending will create new pressure and potential debt risks in its treasury bond market and bring about many other negative effects on the economy. For the international community and Japan's neighboring countries, the right-wing and conservative forces in Japan will continue taking reckless steps to break the "exclusively defense-oriented policy" and gain self-motivation. This trend is worth vigilance.
(The author is a research fellow at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies.)
Editor's note: Originally published on 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.
