Joe Biden hails PM Kishida for scrapping Japan’s pacifist defence strategy

Currently, in the last leg of the tour of the G7 industrial powers, Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Friday met US President Joe Biden in Washington. The latter hailed Japan's increase in military spending to keep peace in the region and said the U.S. was strongly committed to Japan's defence."We are modernising our military alliances, building on Japan's historic increase in defence spending, and new national security strategy," said Biden during the meet.

"Let me be crystal clear: The United States is fully, thoroughly, completely committed to the alliance, and importantly...to the defence of Japan," he added.

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Biden's statement came after Kishida said that both countries were "facing the most challenging and complex security environment in recent history".

Japan's muscular military strategy

Japan last month decided to pivot on its 'pacifist' defence strategy by announcing a $320 billion plan for a military build-up, its biggest since World War II.

Read more: Japan approves $320 billion defence overhaul, says China poses 'greatest strategic threat'

The change was expedited due to a boisterous neighbour in China drumming up hostilities and a rogue element in North Korea which has not halted its indiscriminate missile testing programme.

Both countries are nuclear-armed and thus Japan has taken upon itself to shore the defences by vowing to spend two per cent of the GDP by 2027 on national security.

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Keeping the China threat in mind, Kishida signed a new space pact with the US during the ongoing tour wherein the two allies will come to each other’s defence if their satellites are attacked.

“We agree that attacks to, from or within space present a clear challenge. We affirm that, depending on the nature of those attacks, this could lead to the invocation of Article Five of our Japan-US security treaty,” said Blinken during the announcement of the pact.

Additionally, Tokyo agreed to the stationing of a new Marine unit on Okinawa island. The move intends to provide a stand-in force to Japan when it has to defend itself in the face of military contingencies.

The island's close proximity to Taiwan is another subtle message to China that the move has been engineered keeping it in mind.

Japan will be hosting this year's G7 summit. Kishida is visiting all the members of the grouping, bar Germany. Washington is his last stop. The flurry of military deals and the aggressive stance suggest that Japan has fully embraced its new strategy of playing on the front foot.

(With inputs from agencies)

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