The Japanese will approve the draft budget by April next year. If passed, it would be Japan’s largest military build-up since World War II.
The Japanese Cabinet approved the draft defense budget for fiscal year 2023 on the 23rd, reaching a record 6.8 trillion yen (about 51 billion U.S. dollars), a sharp increase of 26.3% from this fiscal year.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said at a press conference after the cabinet meeting that Japan has reached a historic “turning point” and that it is necessary to strengthen its military. However, this move has caused anxiety in neighboring countries.
On the afternoon of the 23rd, the Japanese government finalized the draft defense budget for 2023, with a record amount of 6.8219 trillion yen (about 51 billion U.S. dollars, 359.3 billion yuan). Although the defense budget includes funds for the reorganization of the US military stationed in Japan, the expansion of Japan’s military power and the research and development of weapons still account for the bulk.
Among them, about 212.4 billion yen is used to purchase the US-made “Tomahawk” cruise missile, which will enable Japan to have the ability to strike other countries’ strategic deep-seated targets for the first time after the war; about 897 billion yen is used for new weapons. especially The research and development of domestic long-range missiles is more than the sum of the research and development funds in the past four years; about 250 billion yen will be used to purchase 16 US-made F-35 stealth fighters; Development projects allocated 102 billion yen.