The Cabinet on Friday approved a record draft defense budget worth $56 billion for the next fiscal year as tensions rise with China and North Korea.
The ¥7.95 trillion draft budget for the 2024 fiscal year, which begins in April, was approved by the Cabinet and is in line with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's pledge to raise defense spending over the next few years.
Japan has a pacifist postwar Constitution, which limits its military capacity to ostensibly defensive measures.