TOKYO, Japan (AFP) — Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has told his cabinet to increase defense spending to two percent of GDP by 2027, up from a longstanding level of around one percent.

Kishida announced the plan to his defense and finance ministers late Monday, as Japan overhauls its defense and security strategies to address growing threats from China as well as the changing geopolitical landscape after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

In August, the defense ministry submitted a $40 billion budget request, but the figure will not be finalized until the government completes updates to several defense policies.

“We’ll take budgetary measures to increase spending on defense and other outlays to two percent of current GDP by 2027,” Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada told reporters after talks with Kishida.

Japan’s defense spending has been set at around one percent of GDP or less for decades, but Kishida’s Liberal Democratic Party has signalled plans to boost that figure closer to the NATO standard of two percent.

Growing pressure from China, including military exercises and the presence of boats around islands disputed with Japan, as well as Russia’s invasion of its neighbor, have helped build support for increased spending.

A series of missile launches by North Korea, including some that have travelled over Japan, have also sharpened views.

The issue has been controversial in Japan for several reasons, including the country’s pacifist post-war constitution, which limits its military capacity to ostensibly defensive measures.

Local media said one target of additional spending would be “counterstrike” capacity — weapons that can target enemy missile launch sites and are described by Tokyo as defensive.

A poll published by the Kyodo news agency on Monday found over 60 percent of respondents favored obtaining a “counterstrike capability”.

Another contentious issue is how to pay for additional defense spending, with higher taxes unpopular, including inside Kishida’s LDP.

Japan’s government is already saddled with enormous costs associated with an ageing and shrinking population, as well as the post-pandemic recovery and fallout from the war in Ukraine.

The Kyodo poll found around a third of respondents favor spending cuts elsewhere in the government’s budget to pay for increased defense spending.

Just over 22 percent backed increased corporate taxes, and 13 percent favor the issuing of government bonds.

© Agence France-Presse