apan will boost its military spending in coming years, buying early-warning planes, beach-assault vehicles and troop-carrying aircraft, while seeking closer ties with Asian partners to counter a more militarily assertive China.
The planned 2.6 percent increase over five years, announced on Tuesday, reverses a decade of decline and marks the clearest sign since Prime Minister Shinzo Abe took office a year ago that he wants a bigger military role for Japan as tension flares with Asia’s other big power over islands both claim.
Abe’s top priority has been reviving a long-sluggish economy, but he has also pledged to strengthen Japan’s military and boost its security profile to meet what he says is a threat from China’s rapid military buildup and recent actions to back its claims to Japanese-held islands in the East China Sea.
