Japan might raise its midterm budget to 3-3.5 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product in line with Nato and other US allies, Bloomberg reported earlier this week, as the US pushes its allies in Asia and Europe to boost their own defences.
At the three-day defence gathering in Beijing on Thursday, Zhou Rong, senior fellow with Renmin University of China’s Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, said the US was not the only influence on Japan’s decision to expand military spending.
“Their increase in military expenditure by 3.5 per cent of GDP does indeed have an American factor. It also has to do with the frantic clamour of their own domestic conservative forces, who hold a hostile attitude towards China or perceive China as a security threat,” Zhou said in an interview on the sidelines of the event, which ended on Thursday.