MOSCOW: Russia is keeping a close eye on the statements by Japan’s new Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi concerning the intention to revise th...
MOSCOW: Russia is keeping a close eye on the statements by Japan’s new Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi concerning the intention to revise the principles of the country’s defense policy, which currently envisages the country’s non-nuclear status, Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov told TASS.
"Naturally, we are keeping an eye," he said in reply to a corresponding question. "And, naturally, we are worried over the lack of clarity."
The opposition requested that Takaichi reiterate in parliament her commitment to the three non-nuclear principles of Japan’s policy, i.e. not to possess nuclear weapons, not to manufacture and not to deploy such weapons in its territory. The prime minister did not do this, saying evasively that it is too early to talk about concrete wording of the future defense strategy.
Shortly after being elected prime minister, Takaichi instructed to review key documents in the defense sphere, including the country’s national security strategy, explaining this by he difficult regional and global situation.
Japan’s current national security strategy that was adopted in December 2022 provides for Tokyo’s right to counterattacks on the enemy’s territory but bans preemptive strikes.
Apart from that, the 2022 strategy envisaged a defense spending increase up to 2% of the GDP, as is practiced in NATO. Takaichi, however, promise to achieve this target ahead of the schedule. It is also planned to increase the range of domestically-manufactured missiles, develop hypersonic weapons, and purchase US-made Tomahawk missiles.
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