Japan will overturn six decades of postwar security policy and arm itself with one of the world’s largest defence budgets to counter “an unprecedented and the greatest strategic challenge” posed by China’s rising military aggression.
In a new national security strategy released on Friday, its first in almost a decade, Tokyo laid out its ambitions to play a more active role in regional security, saying it would “achieve a new balance in international relations” by working more closely with the US and its allies to achieve “a free and open Indo-Pacific”.
“Japan’s security environment is as severe and complex as it has ever been since the end of [the second world war],” the strategy, which will be executed over the coming decade, said. “We will fundamentally reinforce defence capabilities as the last guarantee of national security.”