Japan’s defence chief challenges China’s military spending data

TOKYO – Japan’s Defence Minister Shinjiro Koizumi questioned the accuracy of China’s official military spending figures in a fresh sign that Tokyo is taking a tougher line in response to Beijing’s claims that its regional rival is pursuing “new militarism”.

Drawing a contrast with China, Koizumi said that Japan would take a transparent approach to investing in new methods of warfare like drones and artificial intelligence that are needed to keep up with the changing nature of conflict.

“Our budgets undergo scrutiny and deliberation in parliament,” Koizumi said on June 17, speaking in his first published interview with foreign media as defence chief. “Are the figures they put forward genuinely grounded in fact, backed by evidence, and highly transparent? When doubts arise on those points, how much effort do they put into explaining them?” 

Academics and Western governments generally doubt that China’s headline defence spending figures capture its total outlays. That means the numbers don’t provide an apples-to-apples comparison with data disclosed by other nations.

In December, the Pentagon said it assessed China’s total defence spending for 2024 was 32 per cent-to-63 per cent higher than Beijing’s announced budget of US$231 billion (S$297 billion). 

The Pentagon estimate includes spending on China’s armed police, provincial security spending, veterans’ affairs, mobilisation activities, defence-related R&D, and military capital spending. 

Beijing has repeatedly pushed back against claims that its military spending is not transparent. China’s foreign and defence ministries didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

Koizumi’s remarks suggest Tokyo is stepping up its public criticism of China as Beijing maintains its pressure campaign against Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi. China continues to demand that Takaichi retract remarks she made last November suggesting Japan could get involved in a conflict over Taiwan.

Among other measures, China has tightened controls on exports to Japan such as rare earths that have both commercial and military use, leveraging a key chokehold it has used against the US and other nations. China is by far the largest producer and refiner of rare earths, which have growing importance for the tech, defence and automotive sectors.

At the Group of Seven summit in France on June 16, Takaichi “expressed her grave concern that China’s measures against Japan could adversely affect the supply chains of the G-7 and other like-minded countries,” according to a statement from Japan’s foreign ministry. Like Koizumi, Takaichi also directly named China, going beyond the usual diplomatic tactic of not specifying the nation in question. 

The defence minister has already responded sharply to the claim of Japanese new militarism from Beijing. 

“There is a country that has a huge arsenal of nuclear weapons and strategic bombers,” Koizumi said in a speech in Singapore in May. “Japan has neither of such weapons, and yet Japan is labelled new militarism. Isn’t it strange?”

In March, China said its defence spending would grow by 7 per cent in 2026 to 1.91 trillion yuan (S$364 billion), a slightly slower pace of spending than in recent years as Beijing set its lowest annual economic growth target in more than three decades.

Japan’s forecast for its own military and defence-related spending for the current fiscal year is around 10.6 trillion yen (S$85 billion), less than one-quarter of China’s official defence spending figure. In 2022, Tokyo broke with a long-standing informal cap on defence spending of 1 per cent of gross domestic product, and said it would target outlays worth 2 per cent of GDP by 2027.

Current spending is slightly below that level when measured against 2022 GDP and more than 2 trillion yenbehind compared with 2025 GDP. Japan is also under pressure from the US to raise spending further to 3.5 per cent of GDP, in line with Washington’s demands for its other allies.

Koizumi declined to commit Japan to that level, insisting that the priority was to first determine where money should be spent, including measures to improve conditions for those who join the military. Recruitment is a persistent problem for Japan’s military as the population continues to decline.

“I want to purely request what is truly needed first, rather than focusing on percentages or baseline numbers,” Koizumi said.

Later in 2026, Japan is scheduled to detail a new multi-year defence spending plan that Koizumi and other government leaders have said should reflect advances in military technology.

“Naturally, as new methods of warfare like drones and AI are observed globally, we must invest in fields that will help us achieve new methods of defence” Koizumi said.

So far, Beijing has gained little traction with its claim that Japan is reverting to its period of domination of other Asian nations. “The malevolent emergence of neo-militarism in Japan is putting regional peace and stability under threat,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said recently.

Still, after a meeting on Saturday in Ulaanbaatar, China’s top diplomat and his Mongolian counterpart issued a joint communique that said their nations “oppose all forms of fascism and militarism” in an apparent swipe at Japan.

Despite his criticism of China’s defence spending, Koizumi said Japan is open to talks with Beijing, a stance that Takaichi has also reiterated.

“What is vital in accountability and transparency is to never neglect dialogue, regardless of differences or conflicting stances,” Koizumi said. “Therefore, Japan seeks dialogue no matter how much our position diverges from China’s.” Bloomberg