TOKYO — The Japanese parliament has approved the nation’s largest defense budget yet, allocating 2 percent of its GDP to military spending two years ahead of schedule, a reflection of the escalating security threats in the region and the increasing pressure from the Trump administration on allies to spend more on their own defense.
Japan had planned to reach the 2 percent target by early 2028, but Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, a security hawk who took office in October, has supercharged the timeline. The parliament last week approved her plan to spend an additional $7.1 billion on defense, taking total military spending to $71 billion in the year to March.
It’s a momentous change for Japan, which for decades had capped its defense expenditures at 1 percent of its gross domestic product to uphold postwar pacificist norms, and underscores the dramatic shift Tokyo has taken since 2022 to bolster its own defense. Under Takaichi, Japan is exploring new initiatives, including rolling back restrictions on exporting lethal military equipment.
“Two percent has already been a really complicated undertaking,” said Mira Rapp-Hooper, who oversaw East Asia at the National Security Council under the Biden administration. “But the fact that this is happening two years ahead of schedule, with a desired aim higher, really could not have been foreseen even a few years ago.”
It speaks to the “radical changes in the way Japan thinks about its own security,” especially given the increasingly hostile environment around the island nation, Rapp-Hooper said.
NATO has long considered the 2 percent threshold a benchmark for how serious a country is about its defense.
Japan has its eyes set higher and is already planning a more ambitious military buildup — partly triggered by changes in the region.
China is building up its military and has been repeatedly intruding into Japanese waters and airspace. North Korea is expanding its nuclear-capable weapons systems at a breakneck pace. The Russian invasion of Ukraine raised Tokyo’s fears of China invading Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its territory, and bringing war to Japan’s backyard.
Japan’s latest spat with China, which escalated after Takaichi’s comments last month that Japan could become involved militarily in the case of conflict between China and the United States over Taiwan, has shown how quickly things can unravel between the two nations, experts say. Beijing retaliated swiftly with verbal and economic attacks, and earlier this month, Chinese fighter jets directed their radar on Japanese aircraft.
“The security environment surrounding Japan has become extremely severe, and, therefore, I believe that strengthening our defense capabilities is indispensable,” Takaichi said in a news conference last week.
Japan’s plans also point to anxieties over the reliability of U.S. security commitments under the “America First” and transactional President Donald Trump, experts say.
Trump’s recent use of the term “G2” to describe his meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, suggesting the two nations are peer countries managing global affairs, has made many officials in Tokyo nervous about Japan’s interests being undermined in negotiations between Trump and Xi — despite Japan’s standing as a U.S. security ally of seven decades.
The U.S. no longer views it “necessary to engage in a conflict where it doesn’t really affect the U.S. national interests directly,” said Ken Jimbo, international security expert at Keio University. That raises questions about the U.S. security alliance as a stable source of defense and deterrence for Japan, he said.
“I don’t think we can really automatically rely on that kind of basic assumption that we have preserved for years,” Jimbo said.
Given these circumstances, Tokyo wants to show Washington that it is serious about being an ally — and that in turn, the U.S. should feel the same, according to a senior Japanese official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal discussions. Japan wants to show that its defense buildup is directly in America’s interest, especially given the 55,000 U.S. troops stationed here, the official said.
One major challenge remains: How to pay for the increase.
To get to 2 percent ahead of schedule, the Japanese government used a supplementary budget to tack on more expenses, and it is using a mix of bonds and tax surpluses to finance it. This made it easier for Takaichi to quickly ramp up her defense budget without public backlash.
Eventually, the government plans to take the more difficult step of raising income taxes. But it faces significant challenges: stagnant wages, a weak yen, and a shrinking and aging population.
Yet the Trump administration wants more. U.S. officials have signaled that they expect Japan to increase its defense budget to 3.5 percent, which NATO countries and neighboring South Korea this year committed to reaching by 2035.
Many Japanese officials agree that 2 percent is not enough to meet the military’s needs to upgrade and modernize its weapons systems and technology. But they say it’s not feasible to take on an increase to 3.5 percent anytime soon.
“It’s impossible to increase 2 percent to 3.5 percent right away — a 75 percent increase,” the Japanese official said, adding it would require substantial work to win public support.
Under the defense buildup plan, Japan is pursuing a slew of new technologies and indigenous capabilities, including ones focused on its southwestern islands that sit closest to Taiwan.
These include domestically produced long-range “standoff” missiles, which would allow Japan to carry out counterstrikes deep inside China and North Korea, and hypersonic guided missiles, state-of-the-art projectiles known for their ability to evade attempts to shoot them down.
Japan is also improving integrated air and missile defense systems by upgrading existing assets — such as Aegis-equipped destroyers and Patriot missile interceptors using technology licensed from the U.S. — and by acquiring new ones.
One major project is a coastal defense system that deploys a drone “shield” that would deploy an uncrewed fleet of air and underwater systems to gather intelligence and detect threats at an early stage.
Japan wants a more robust deterrence capability to “stand on our own feet as much as possible,” said Takayuki Kobayashi, the policy chief of Takaichi’s Liberal Democratic Party.
That includes using homegrown advanced technology in cybersecurity, space and secured communications — for which Japan currently relies on the U.S., Kobayashi said.
“This is not something we are changing because another country is telling us to,” Kobayashi said of the defense budget. “While we are strengthening our relationship with the United States, Japan also needs to maximize what we can do on our own.”
Such an effort is more urgent given repeated Chinese military incursions and threats, officials say. Just this year, Chinese coast guard vessels entered Japan’s territorial waters around the disputed islands of Senkaku, which the Chinese call Diaoyu, and a helicopter launched from one of those vessels violated Japanese airspace, according to the Defense Ministry.
“This is a time when Japan is being tested,” said Gen Nakatani, a Japanese politician who served as the defense minister until October. “China is provoking us to see how Japan and the United States will act.”
A key part of Japan’s defense strategy is working with other countries facing military threats from China, such as the Philippines, Australia and the Southeast Asian nations. Earlier this year, Japan struck a deal to sell a new model of frigates to Australia to enable it to upgrade its aging fleet. Now, Tokyo reportedly plans to export a command and control system to the Philippines.
The goal is to “strengthen Japan’s own defense capabilities, and where U.S. power has, in a sense, diminished, Japan needs to fill that gap” through defense cooperation with nations throughout the Asia-Pacific and in Europe, said Kazuhisa Shimada, former vice defense minister and an architect of Japan’s defense buildup plan.
The government is working closely with defense companies to help the industry grow and develop dual-use civilian and military technologies.
Officials at Japanese embassies abroad now even accompany defense contractors to support their export business — which has made a big difference in getting foreign governments to take the proposals seriously, said Masahiko Arai, senior vice president of defense and space systems at Mitsubishi Electric, which makes radars and missiles.
Critics fear that Japan is on a dangerous path, even if deterrence is the goal.
Atsushi Ishida, University of Tokyo professor of international politics and peace research, warned there is serious risk of an arms race developing and potential for unintended war through accidents or misperceptions by adversaries.
“This possibility of unwanted, tragic conflict is something I find deeply concerning,” Ishida said.
Japan’s exclusively defense-oriented policy, based on its pacifist constitution, is “at a crossroads,” Ishida said. Eighty years since the end of World War II, memories of war appear to be fading among many — including the Japanese, he said: “Ultimately, it is the citizens who pay the unbearable costs and the sacrifices.”
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