The United States on Wednesday welcomed Japan's recently announced plan to significantly increase its five-year defense spending to over 40 trillion yen ($293 billion), citing the "acute" security challenges Asia is facing.
"There is no question that Northeast Asia has become a more dangerous neighborhood," State Department spokesman Ned Price told a press conference, highlighting the intensifying pace and scale of North Korea's provocations and ballistic missile tests.
"We certainly welcome the announcement from Japan regarding its plans for defense spending," he said.
Japan, with its pacifist Constitution, has long kept its annual defense budget at around 1 percent of gross domestic product. The defense outlays for fiscal 2022 until next March stood at around 5.4 trillion yen.
But China's growing assertiveness in the region and North Korea's nuclear and missile threats are pushing Japan toward substantially beefing up its defense capabilities and increase related spending to 2 percent of GDP.
As part of efforts to achieve the goal, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida decided on Monday to earmark about 43 trillion yen for defense expenses from fiscal 2023 to fiscal 2027, an over 50 percent increase from its current five-year spending plan.
The spending may be used for Japan to develop longer-range strike capabilities enabling it to attack missile-launching sites in enemy territory, a military ability the Asian country has so far opted against acquiring.
Noting that there are "no more important allies" in the Indo-Pacific than Japan and South Korea, Price said that "coordination and defensive and deterrent steps" with allies are key to dealing with North Korea while it remains unwilling to engage in dialogue and diplomacy toward denuclearization.
