Japan ‘cannot maintain’ security with current capabilities amid China threat, defence chief warns

In the face of growing threats from China, North Korea and Russia, the ‘jarring bluntness’ of General Yoshihide Yoshida’s comments raised eyebrows

Opinion polls show an increase in public support for more defence spending and acquiring counterstrike abilities, the Japanese armed-forces chief said

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A Japanese Self-Defence Force MV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft lands during a drill in Gotemba, Shizuoka prefecture, in March last year. Photo: AFP

Published: 9:30am, 30 Aug 2023Updated: 2:02pm, 30 Aug 2023

Japan’s pacifist Self-Defence Forces (SDF) cannot adequately defend the country and need more resources to intercept attacks and carry out counterstrikes, a top military general has warned, amid domestic debate about the changing nature of the nation’s security situation.

In an interview with the Nikkei newspaper on whether the SDF was able to defend Japan, Chief of the Joint Staff General Yoshihide Yoshida did not mince his words.

“We cannot maintain Japan’s security with our current capabilities,” he said on Tuesday. “That is why the decision was made to increase defence spending to 2 per cent of gross domestic product and to fundamentally strengthen our capabilities under the three key defence policy documents.”

Japan’s Chief of Staff, Joint Staff, General Yoshihide Yoshida. Photo: X/@JapanJointStaff

The “jarring bluntness” of the general’s comments raised eyebrows in political circles and prompted renewed public debate about the need for Japan to do significantly more to protect itself in the face of an increasingly assertive China, unpredictable and nuclear-armed North Korea, and Russia, which has taken exception to Tokyo’s support for Ukraine.

Garren Mulloy, an international-relations professor specialising in security issues at Daito Bunka University in Saitama prefecture, welcomed Yoshida’s comments as a necessary part of the debate about the future of the nation’s defence, with Japan undergoing its biggest military build-up since its defeat at the end of World War II.

“A senior military official would usually equivocate when asked a question like this, so the jarring bluntness is refreshing,” he said.

“I believe one of the reasons he gave this answer is because there are some politicians who see an increase in defence spending as unnecessary, and almost doubling the budget is a politically problematic issue.”