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The Mainichi
3 days ago
- Business
- The Mainichi
NATO just set its defense spending target at 5% of GDP. Can Japan do the same?
TOKYO -- "Rather than a simple call for military expansion, this probably reflects the issue of how allies respond financially to the burden felt by the United States." A senior Japanese Defense Ministry official offered this analysis of a recent agreement by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) members to raise defense and defense-related spending targets to 5% of their GDP. Given that Japan also relies heavily on its alliance with the U.S., the ministry official expressed concern that these developments could affect Japan's own security and budgeting. For decades, Japan's defense spending remained around 1% of GDP. Just two and a half years ago, at the end of 2022, the Japanese government announced plans to strengthen national defense significantly and pledged to increase total defense-related expenditures to 2% of its fiscal 2022 GDP by fiscal 2027. Under its current defense buildup plan, the Defense Ministry has already allocated substantial sums: 5 trillion yen (approx. $34.6 billion) over five years for counterstrike "standoff defense capabilities," including long-range missiles, and an additional 3 trillion yen (approx. $20.7 billion) for integrated air-and-missile defense, including the construction of ships equipped with the Aegis missile-interception system. Japan's total defense-related spending in the current fiscal year's initial budget amounts to 9.9 trillion yen (approx. $68.4 billion, around 1.8% of GDP), clearly approaching but yet to reach the 2% goal. Even amid these already ambitious plans, pressure from the U.S. for Japan to boost spending even further is rapidly increasing. On June 21, Chief Pentagon Spokesman Sean Parnell strongly suggested that America's Asian allies -- explicitly including Japan -- should also raise their defense-related spending to reach 5% of GDP. U.S. Under Secretary of Defense Elbridge Colby, the Pentagon's third-ranking official, has repeatedly proposed Japan boost its defense budget to 3% of GDP. Additionally, some British media reported on June 20 that Colby had called on the Japanese government to aim as high as 3.5% of GDP. Regarding these reports, a Japanese government official stated, "We've never been formally approached with such requests," but hinted undersurface pressure indeed exists, adding that there are people quietly pushing for an increase within parts of the U.S. government. What matters is the quality of our defense capabilities Even when Japan initially set the 2% target, the government faced criticism for prioritizing numbers over substance. The administration currently remains careful not to focus solely on spending goals. At a June 24 press conference, Defense Minister Gen Nakatani emphasized, "What matters most remains the actual quality of our defense capabilities." Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba also highlighted at a June 23 press conference, "The critical point is that we independently determine what we truly need and naturally coordinate closely with our ally, the United States." A Defense Ministry official similarly explained, "It is first vital for Japan to discuss strategic priorities and how to strengthen defense measures. Any discussion about spending targets would come afterward." Nonetheless, the Japanese government clearly referenced NATO countries' numbers when adopting the initial 2% figure. The original recommendation of spending 2% of GDP on defense originates directly from NATO, and Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has repeatedly pointed to NATO practices as a model. Japan formally mentioned the NATO target of 2% in its government policy guidelines formulated in June 2022, as well as in its August 2022 defense white paper. Subsequently, the 2% commitment was written explicitly into the new National Security Strategy approved later that year. Given current fiscal circumstances... Yet skepticism about the feasibility for Japan to reach as high as 5% already exists. Even a simple calculation implies more than doubling current spending plans, prompting some in the Defense Ministry itself to doubt the figure's practicality. One involved official expressed concern, asking, "Can Japan realistically budget those enormous sums considering the present state of government finances -- and even if we did, could we properly execute such spending?" It should be noted that spending expressed as a percentage of GDP includes expenditures beyond just the defense ministry's official budget. Expenses classified as "complementary defense measures" are also included, such as subsidies related to U.S. military bases handled by ministries and agencies other than the Defense Ministry, the budgets of the Japan Coast Guard, cybersecurity-related funding and strategic public infrastructure. While the Japanese government is actively designating and developing airports and seaports as public infrastructure also used for defense purposes, new developments do not require continuous large expenditure and substantial growth in defense-related funding is not expected to continue. The current defense buildup plan ends in fiscal 2027, and this year marks the halfway point of that long-term plan. Within the LDP, discussions regarding the formulation of the next phase of defense expenditure and capability enhancement measures are expected to begin in earnest after the summer House of Councillors election. Reflecting on NATO's latest spending goals, a Defense Ministry official noted, "The NATO agreement will likely serve as a catalyst pushing us toward faster discussions on additional defense strengthening and further defense spending."
21-06-2025
- Business
U.S. Demands Japan Raise Defense Spending to 3.5 Pct of GDP: FT
Washington, June 20 (Jiji Press)--The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has urged Japan to increase its defense spending to 3.5 pct of its gross domestic product, higher than the U.S. side's earlier demand for 3 pct, the Financial Times reported Friday. The latest request has caused a backlash from the Japanese side, resulting in the postponement of a so-called two-plus-two security meeting between the two nations' foreign and defense ministers, which had been arranged for July 1, according to the report. Elbridge Colby, U.S. undersecretary of defense for policy, pushed for the higher spending hike, "sparking anger in Washington's closest Asian ally," the British newspaper said. The upcoming election for Japan's House of Councillors, expected to be held on July 20, also influenced the decision to push back the two-plus-two meeting, as the Japanese side showed concern about the possible impact of the meeting on the election's outcome, the report said. In a similar move, the U.S. government asked Australia to increase its defense spending to 3.5 pct of GDP, provoking a backlash from Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]
Yahoo
21-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Japan scraps US meeting after Washington demands more defense spending -FT
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Japan has canceled a regular high-level meeting with its key ally the United States after the Trump administration demanded it spend more on defense, the Financial Times reported on Friday. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had been expected to meet their Japanese counterparts in Washington on July 1 for annual 2+2 security talks. But Tokyo scrapped the meeting after the U.S. side asked Japan to boost defense spending to 3.5 per cent of GDP, higher than an earlier request of 3 per cent, the paper cited unnamed sources familiar with the matter, including two officials in Tokyo, as saying. A U.S. official who did not want to be identified confirmed Japan had "postponed" the talks but said the decision was made several weeks ago. The source did not cite a reason. A non-government source familiar with the issue said he had also heard Japan had pulled out of the meeting, but not the reason for it doing so. U.S. State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said she had no comment on the FT report when asked about it at regular briefing, and the Pentagon also had no immediate comment. Japan's embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment. The Financial Times said the new higher spending demand was made in recent weeks by Elbridge Colby, the third-most senior Pentagon official, who has also recently upset another key U.S. ally in the Indo-Pacific by launching a review of a project to provide Australia with nuclear-powered submarines. In March, Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said that other nations do not decide Japan's defense budget after Colby called in his nomination hearing to be under secretary of defense for policy for Tokyo to spend more to counter China. Japan and other U.S. allies have been engaged in difficult trade talks with the United States over U.S. President Donald Trump's worldwide tariff offensive. The FT said the decision to cancel the July 1 meeting was also related to Japan's July 20 Upper House elections, at which the ruling Liberal Democratic Party is expected to suffer a loss of seats. It comes ahead of a meeting of the U.S.-led NATO alliance in Europe next week, at which Trump is expected to press his demand that European allies boost their defense spending to 5 percent of GDP.
Reuters
20-06-2025
- Business
- Reuters
Japan scraps US meeting after Washington demands more defense spending -FT
WASHINGTON, June 20 (Reuters) - Japan has canceled a regular high-level meeting with its key ally the United States after the Trump administration demanded it spend more on defense, the Financial Times reported on Friday. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had been expected to meet their Japanese counterparts in Washington on July 1 for annual 2+2 security talks. But Tokyo scrapped the meeting after the U.S. side asked Japan to boost defense spending to 3.5 per cent of GDP, higher than an earlier request of 3 per cent, the paper cited unnamed sources familiar with the matter, including two officials in Tokyo, as saying. A U.S. official who did not want to be identified confirmed Japan had "postponed" the talks but said the decision was made several weeks ago. The source did not cite a reason. A non-government source familiar with the issue said he had also heard Japan had pulled out of the meeting, but not the reason for it doing so. U.S. State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said she had no comment on the FT report when asked about it at regular briefing, and the Pentagon also had no immediate comment. Japan's embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment. The Financial Times said the new higher spending demand was made in recent weeks by Elbridge Colby, the third-most senior Pentagon official, who has also recently upset another key U.S. ally in the Indo-Pacific by launching a review of a project to provide Australia with nuclear-powered submarines. In March, Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said that other nations do not decide Japan's defense budget after Colby called in his nomination hearing to be under secretary of defense for policy for Tokyo to spend more to counter China. Japan and other U.S. allies have been engaged in difficult trade talks with the United States over U.S. President Donald Trump's worldwide tariff offensive. The FT said the decision to cancel the July 1 meeting was also related to Japan's July 20 Upper House elections, at which the ruling Liberal Democratic Party is expected to suffer a loss of seats. It comes ahead of a meeting of the U.S.-led NATO alliance in Europe next week, at which Trump is expected to press his demand that European allies boost their defense spending to 5 percent of GDP.
AllAfrica
20-06-2025
- Business
- AllAfrica
How China got the US over a rare earth barrel
Who's gonna tell you when it's too late? Who's gonna tell you things aren't so great? You can't go on, thinking nothing's wrong, but now Who's gonna drive you home tonight? – The Cars 'Just when I thought I was out,' Michael Corleone lamented, 'They pull me back in.' This column was originally intended to be about the lamentable state of America's rare earths dependency and how decades of delusional thinking – 'Rare earths are not rare!', 'We taught China rare earth processing!' – led to the current predicament. But who cares about rare earths now; the Middle East is once again a conflagration likely to ruin all of US Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby's best-laid pivot to Asia plans whether President Donald Trump drops that 30,000-pound bomb on Iran or not. The Persian Gulf and Eastern Mediterranean will tie down US naval assets for another decade. Michael Corleone's fatal flaw was that he did not understand what business he was in. He was a gangster, and there is no escape from murder, death and ruin in that line of work. Karma came for Philip Tattaglia, Barzini, Cuneo, Stracci, Moe Green and Hyman Roth. Why would it be any different for Michael and the Corleone family? Since the end of World War II, the United States has run a maritime empire and there is no escape from entanglement, overstretch and ruin in that line of work. Karma came for the Minoans, Phoenicians, Italian merchant states, Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, British and Japanese empires. Why would it be any different for America? The reason the US is dependent on China for rare earth elements is that ores with extractable concentrations are, in fact, rare and processing these ores into usable concentrates is, in fact, incredibly difficult. The purpose of maritime empires is to harvest wealth from far-flung imperial possessions – or, more palatably, a rules-based international order. This need not be as self-serving as it sounds. Japan was allowed to have a very nice four-decade-long run between 1945 and 1985. Europe got the Marshall Plan and eight decades of security, allowing the old country (literally) to fund generous pension and welfare programs. Nixon's rapprochement with Mao removed the US Seventh Fleet as a Pacific threat, paving the way for China's coastal industrialization. In return, the US got decades of Middle Eastern oil arguably for free (crude oil paid for in dollars recycled into US investments). America also got manufactured goods from Asia and Europe on the same trade and creamed off the best and brightest from all corners of the world to become the empire's minions. All of the above should be grounds for celebration. It's all America could have asked for as a maritime empire. And yet, we are all familiar with the downsides. Maritime empires contain the seeds of their own destruction, magnifying capitalism's iniquities as wealth concentrates in ever fewer hands. Karl Marx wrote 'Das Kapital'at the height of the British Empire, showcasing brutal exploitation in Britain's own factories. The Trump presidency (both terms) is a reaction to America's neglected working class. The reason the US is dependent on China for rare earth elements is because processing technology has advanced multiple generations in the past two decades. The majority of the world's rare earths are now processed in Baotou Inner Mongolia, largely using third-generation sulfuric acid roasting technology, having long ago abandoned polluting in-situ leaching. Because of unavoidable foreign entanglements, maritime empires are not able to enjoy what should be a major perk of hegemony – to not have to expend resources on the military. The spoils of maritime empires can only be collected with expensive navies and far-flung bases if not occasional (perhaps continual) spillage of blood. And America's collected spoils have, of late, not been well distributed among the citizenry, particularly among those asked to do the bleeding. Mischief is irresistible for empires with forward-deployed militaries. The US has conducted about 200 military interventions since the end of WWII, 50 since the end of the Cold War. The most significant of these have been abject disasters – Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan – draining the empire of blood, treasure, domestic vitality and international goodwill. Mischief is once again at work, enticing America back into the Middle East just a few short years after humiliatingly crashing out of Afghanistan. America's pivot to Asia will never happen, just like Michael Corleone could never extricate the family business from its criminal past. The empire has collected too many barnacles. This is the exact opposite of the domino theory. It does not get easier. At some point, foreign entanglements stop benefiting the empire and become, at best, leeches and, at worst, ruinous distractions. The US, bled dry by two decades of never-ending wars, can only pivot to Asia by abandoning the Middle East and Ukraine. But like bickering concubines, manipulative allies conspire for the emperor's favor. In every stable of concubines, there is always a favorite who outmaneuvers the rest and imposes her will on a besotted emperor. America's Wu Zetian just unleashed a surprise attack on Iran demanding the emperor's total attention, leaving beautiful, faithful, innocent and delicate Taiwan to twist in the wind. The US is dependent on China for rare earth elements because rare earth chemistry programs are offered at dozens of Chinese universities versus none in the US. China has produced over 50,000 rare earth patents in the past two decades versus a de minimis number anywhere else. Cutting-edge science in the field is published in a handful of dedicated Chinese rare earth journals. China does not do foreign entanglements. Historically, China expanded organically by incorporating different polities into the Chinese state. That is what makes China China. Unlike maritime empires, the entire purpose of the Chinese state is to harness the major perk of hegemony– not having to waste resources on the military and, instead, deploy them on public works projects, from Yellow River dykes to high-speed rail. In the early 15th century, after commissioning seven magnificent imperial treasure voyages over three decades, reaching as far west as the east coast of Africa and establishing China as the world's pre-eminent seafaring nation, the Ming Dynasty court suddenly turned its back on maritime power. Historians have asked why ever since. Whether it was economics, Confucian conservatism or banal power struggles, abandoning maritime power set China up for European and Japanese predation in the 19th and 20th centuries. In a full accounting of history, maritime empires have not fared much better. Competition for overseas assets led to the slaughter of two World Wars, immolating much of Europe's accumulated wealth. Imperial possessions, acquired over a span of four centuries, evaporated in the blink of a few decades. The reason the US is dependent on China for rare earth elements is because of a maddening inability to concentrate. The US has known of its risky reliance on China for rare earths for two decades. In 2010, China weaponized its rare earth stranglehold on Japan during an East China Sea border dispute. In 2019, after President Trump launched a trade and tech war, China State Television not so subtly broadcast President Xi Jinping's visit to a rare earth processing plant. And somehow, in 2025, China has become an even more dominant supplier of rare earth elements. In all these instances, the exact same narratives were parroted by the English media – rare earths are not actually rare, China dominates rare earth processing because it is polluting, the US transferred rare earth processing technology to China. These shibboleths, which fall apart on close scrutiny, have tied America's hands for two decades. Halfhearted efforts to resolve the problem fell by the wayside when China refrained from pulling the rare earth trigger – until now, in 2025, when China is putting the squeeze on rare earth exports for military use just as strategic competition with the US is entering its most intense phase and right when conflicts in Israel and Ukraine are consuming an inordinate amount of military hardware. Like Michael Corleone, the US tried to convince itself that it was in a different business. 'The Godfather' is a tragedy worthy of – and rhyming with – both 'Macbeth' and 'King Lear.' Michael was blinded by ambition, thought of himself as more than a gangster and ultimately brought ruin onto himself and the Corleone family. The US consciously chose to be a maritime empire, stationing troops in 800 bases across the world, and then convinced itself that it was more than just an extractive empire, above the nitty-gritty, dirty work of resource extraction and immune from manipulation by vassals. Let us hope that this does not end in a Godfather-esque tragedy.
