onsdag 31. august 2016

Japan defence ministry seeks record budget to counter Chinese threat

Japan’s defence ministry has requested a record budget to counter growing Chinese military activity around a group of disputed islands in the East China Sea.The ministry is seeking 5.17 trillion yen (£38bn) for the year beginning in April 2017. That marks an increase of 2.3% from last year, and is the fifth annual increase since Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, came to power in late 2012 vowing to bolster the military to address a surge in Chinese naval activity andNorth Korea’s nuclear weapons programme.

The latest budget request marks a continuation in the shift in focus away from Japan’s northern maritime border with Russia – where cold war Soviet forces once posed a threat – to an 870-mile chain of southern outlying islands stretching from the Japanese mainland towards Taiwan. Read more