Japan’s prime minister warns that Ukraine today could be Asia tomorrow

2 comments

1. From Washington Post:

   As fears of war grow in East Asia, the United States’ chief Pacific ally, Japan, is moving away from decades of self-imposed restraint and launching its largest military buildup since World War II. As regional tensions increase, Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is urging the United States to grasp the urgency and gravity of this historic but dangerous moment.
   In December, Kishida’s government completed the rewriting of three core documents that make up Japan’s national security strategy. For the first time since 1976, Japan will no longer limit its defense spending to 1 percent of gross domestic product. Under the accompanying five-year defense budget plan, Japan is now set to nearly double its defense outlay to 2 percent of GDP by 2027. This would make Japan’s military budget the world’s third largest, behind only the United States and China.
   The objective is to raise deterrence against China and North Korea, in the hopes of stopping leaders in Beijing and Pyongyang from contemplating the use of violent aggression of the kind Russian President Vladimir Putin has unleashed in Ukraine.
   [https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/01/11/japan-prime-minister-rearmament-china-north-korea/](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/01/11/japan-prime-minister-rearmament-china-north-korea/)

2. Honestly I’m glad democratic nations are realizing that we need to be prepared for the worst. China needs to be taken seriously when they say they intend to annex Taiwan by 2050, probably sooner with their rapid buildup of modern nuclear weapons.

   Edit: also Korea