As Japan unveils a record US$861.64 billion budget - pushed up by increased defense spending - we look at the reasons for Japan’s historic increase to 2% GDP military spending, and what it means for the region. Since November, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has said that North Korea’s barrage of missiles that forced Japanese residents to seek shelter was completely unacceptable.
In this episode we ask how these aggressions - coupled with China’s threats in the East China Sea and those following Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan in August - have led to Japan’s biggest defense buildup since World War 2 and the revisions in the country’s three defense strategies.
Our panelists on the show are:
Leonard Chao National Tsing Hua University Adjunct Professor and former Taiwan Ambassador to eSwatini, and
Kuo Yu-jen, Professor at the Institute of China and Asia-Pacific Studies at National Sun Yat-sen University and President of the Taiwan Society of Japanese Studies, as well as Director of the Institute for National Policy Research.
And finally, our extended interview, on why China would lose more than it would gain should it attack Taiwan, with:
• Gerard DiPippo Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) Economics Program Senior Fellow. He’s also an ex-U.S. National Intelligence Council Deputy National Intelligence Officer and former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Senior Economic Analyst.
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