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Japan sets defense budget rise amid islands dispute with China
Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows he leaves a news conference at his official residence in Tokyo January 11, 2013.
Credit: Reuters/Issei Kato
TOKYO |
TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan is planning to increase its defense budget this year for the first time in 11 years, the Defense Ministry's revised budget request showed on Friday, amid a bitter territorial dispute with China.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe led his Liberal Democratic Party to a landslide victory last month, promising to beef up the military and stand tough in a row with China over East China Sea islets claimed by both sides.
"Our stance that we will adamantly protect our waters and territories has not changed at all. As I said before, there is no room for negotiations," Abe told reporters after the government approved $117 billion of spending to revive the economy.
The latest request is made up of 4.65 trillion yen ($53 billion) in budget appropriations for the year starting on April 1, flat from the current fiscal year's initial budget, and a group of last-minute items for which costs have yet to be determined.
However, those items, such as an unspecified rise in the number of soldiers and fuel and maintenance costs for the increased use of surveillance planes, will likely exceed 100 billion yen ($1.13 billion), the ministry said.
In its initial budget request for the next fiscal year, submitted under the previous Democratic Party government, the ministry asked for 4.59 trillion yen, down 1.3 percent on the year, reflecting the constraints of Japan's huge public debt.
That would have been the biggest percentage drop in Japan's Defense budget in more than half a century.
The revised budget request is expected to be approved by the cabinet, perhaps with minor cuts requested by the Finance Ministry.
In a separate 13.1 trillion yen extra budget for the current fiscal year due to be approved by the cabinet, the ministry will also be allocated 212 billion yen to boost communications, transport and missile Defense capability. ($1 = 88 yen)
(Reporting by Kiyoshi Takenaka; Editing by Nick Macfie)
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However most of the tensions originate from US propaganda that has come with the Asian Pivot. The best solution might be to help North Korea with re-entry pods designed for multiple independents strike units (MISU’s) that can send 6 nuclear warheads each into space over the US. One missile can launch 4 pods, so North Korea can send 24 nuclear warheads aloft with each launch and put 24 US cities in harm’s way. With 5 missiles, 120 US cities would be at risk. Technically, the US and North Korea remain in a legal state of war because no peace treaty was signed. Officially, there is a truce that both Koreas violate. China “allowed volunteers” on the ground to help North Korea, and Russian pilots were “volunteers,” so no legal states of war exist between the US and South Korea on one side and China and Russia on the other.
The US is declining and is trying to start small conflicts involving China to slow its growth, so giving North Korea the technical capability to put the US into another “Cold War” might encourage the US to improve its behavior. 120 North Korean nuclear weapons will not destroy the US. The pods will be undetectable after reaching orbit; they will appear during re-entry; and the warheads will be undetectable from release to detonation. The warheads should persuade the US to stop provoking wars against China.
Why do you Chinese always try to blame America?
Japan – and the whole of the SEA – is increasing defence spending because China is trying to take their territory. Senkaku Islands, Paracel Islands, Spratly Islands, Scarborough Shoal, etc.
China is doing that all on its own. America is not forcing China to behave like that.
That is not blaming America; that is the truth. America can do better, but it is not doing what it should do at the present. America is in decline relative to China; its leaders always knew that this would happen; but they thought that it would happen in 2050 when they were all dead. Costly US wars, costlier US economic crises, and US political stalemate that US voters elected have caused the change to occur faster than US leaders expected. The US uses its propaganda to encourage countries to press disputes against China and offers to mediate so the US can influence decisions in an effort to reduce China’s growing power. Dr. Jozsef Borocz at Rutgers wrote “The Rise of China and the Changing World Income Distribution” in in which he pointed out that the main threat to global civilization would be the response of the US to
China’s rise because it could result in “a devastating Third (and this time truly global) World War.” (See last paragraph, p. 100 and first paragraph, p. 101.)
We run companies that develop various forms of technology for China, including defense technologies. We prefer peace, prosperity, and trade because that is the way that the world works most effectively. However, if the US continues to urge Japan and other countries into minor conflicts over small rocks and tiny amounts of oil and gas (relative to the massive oil and gas reserves of Siberia that is next to China), it may be time to give bigger warnings. North Korea has the option to gain a new missile and warhead project, so the US should recognize the wisdom of intervening with its allies to defuse the crisis. The US survived the era of Mutually Assured Destruction during the Cold War, and it should not seek to enter a new period of MADness.
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