Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida vowed Sunday that he will do everything possible to increase his country’s defensive military capabilities in the face of tension stemming from Chinese maritime operations.
«The security environment surrounding our country, including the East China Sea and South China Sea, is rapidly becoming increasingly serious,» Kishida said during an inspection visit to the aircraft carrier ‘Izumo’.
«There is no time to lose in this regard,» Kishida said during the inspection of the aircraft carrier, one of 18 warships from 12 countries that have participated in a review of the international fleet, including the United States, Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, Singapore and South Korea in Sagami Bay, southwest of Tokyo.
Japan, it should be recalled, has steadily increased its international defense role and military spending over the past decade, and plans to double its military budget over the next decade to about 2 percent of its GDP, based on the NATO standard.
From there, Kishida also denounced the danger posed to the country by North Korea’s latest launches.
«North Korea fired a missile that flew over our country,» Kishida recalled in reference to the North Korean projectile fired on October 4, before vowing that Japan «will never tolerate that country’s nuclear and missile development,» in statements carried by the official Japanese news agency Kyodo.
The prime minister has also reiterated on Ukraine that his country considers the Russian invasion as unacceptable. «Unilateral attempts to change the status quo by force, such as the invasion of Ukraine, should never be tolerated anywhere in the world,» he said.
This Sunday, Kishida and U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emmanuel will visit the USS ‘Ronald Reagan’, the only aircraft carrier based outside the continental United States, anchored off the U.S. naval base in Yokosuka.
