The Ministry of Defense of Japan requested a record high summary of the budget for the next fiscal year (it will begin on April 1, 2022) – more than 5.4 trillion yen (about $ 48.44 billion). Thus, the country will increase the costs of the armed forces by 7 percent. This was reported by NHK.
Next year, the defense department, in addition to spending on daily activities and equipment of troops, plans to use money for the development of autonomous drones of an early warning system (89 million dollars), as well as to modify the winged missiles of a large radius of air and marine base (347 million dollars).
According to the current Constitution, Japan cannot spend more than two percent of its GDP on defense. Costs continuously grow over eight years in a row. The new budget marks the tenth increase in the country’s military costs.
Earlier, Japanese Foreign Minister Esiimas Hayashi expressed serious concern due to an increase in Russia’s military activity and the PRC near the Japanese borders during telephone conversations with the head of the Russian Foreign Ministry Sergey Lavrov. We are talking about the joint teachings of Moscow and Beijing, in which the military aviation of the two states conducted air patrols over the water area of the Japanese and East-Chinese seas.