Japan Moves to Double Military Spending, With a Wary Eye on China

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

58% : Raising military spending to 2 percent of G.D.P. would bring Japan into line with pledges made by the members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
51% : They support defense spending increases, but they don't like more taxes," said Hideki Uemura, a professor of international politics and security at Ryutsu Keizai University.
49% : But this month, when Mr. Kishida said he planned to double military spending, the ensuing debate largely focused not on whether the investment should be approved, but on how to pay for it.
48% : He called such a change inevitable as China increased military spending and aggressively pursued territorial claims in the South China Sea and around the Senkaku Islands, which Japan administers.
39% : As Japan moves to abandon its longstanding custom of keeping military spending around 1 percent of its economic output, the changing stance largely tracks its growing concerns about being dragged into a conflict between the United States and China over Taiwan.

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