TOKYO, Jun 17 (NNN-NHK) – Japan’s ruling party, yesterday vowed to “fundamentally” reinforce the country’s defence capability and increase spending on it, in the next five years, ahead of an upcoming House of Councillors election.
The ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) is targeting to roughly double Japan’s defence spending to two percent, or more of the country’s gross domestic product.
The goal is hustled as one of the pledges for the upper house election, scheduled for July 10.
Japanese Prime Minister, Fumio Kishida, head of the LDP, seeks to assess voter confidence in his roughly nine months of government handling, amid the COVID-19 pandemic and inflation.
For years under the pacifist Constitution, Japan has been committed to an exclusively defence-oriented policy, limiting its defence spending to around one percent of the country’s GDP, or over five trillion yen (37 billion dollars) in the fiscal 2022 budget.
Kishida said, Wednesday, the upcoming election will provide voters with an opportunity to decide how Japan will cope with “history-making” challenges.
While the LDP set a specific target for defence spending, its coalition partner, Komeito, and the major opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, did not include it in their campaign pledges, upholding the view that substance instead of size is the most important.– NNN-NHK
