Japan's Kishida Stresses Importance of Defense Spending Hike

Tokyo, May 24 (Jiji Press)--Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida stressed the importance of increasing the country's defense spending in a parliamentary meeting Wednesday.

"We'll make full efforts to drastically strengthen our defense capabilities in order to adapt to the toughest and most complicated security environment since the end of World War II," amid China's increasingly hegemonic moves and North Korea's nuclear and missile development, Kishida told the House of Councillors, the upper chamber of the Diet.

At the day's plenary meeting, the Upper House began deliberations on a bill for securing financial resources for the planned defense spending increase.

On the Group of Seven summit in the western city of Hiroshima that ended on Sunday, Kishida said, "We demonstrated our strong determination to fully defend a free and open international order based on the rule of law."

The government plans to secure 43 trillion yen in defense spending over the five years from fiscal 2023, which started in April.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]