TOKYO: US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth on Wednesday welcomed Japan's plan to fortify its defence posture as an "important step forward", but said he had made no specific demand on the scale of increase in Tokyo's defence spending.
Hegseth made the comment following a meeting in Tokyo with his Japanese counterpart Shinjiro Koizumi.
Their meeting comes a day after Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi told US President Donald Trump that she was determined to bolster Japan's defence capabilities and expressed her desire to realise a "new golden age" of the alliance.
"I was glad to see, alongside President Trump, Prime Minister Takaichi, the commitment to increase Japan's defence spending. It's wonderful. It's an important step forward," Hegseth told a joint press conference with Koizumi.
Takaichi said in her policy speech last week that the government plans to raise Japan's defence spending to two per cent of gross domestic product in the current fiscal year to March 2026, from about 1.8 per cent currently.
That would be two years earlier than originally planned, but the level falls short of NATO's new defence investment pledge of five per cent of GDP by 2035.
Asked if he made a request to Koizumi with a specific numerical target on Japan's defence spending, he said: "There were certainly no demands placed on Japan from the United States." The Financial Times reported in June that Japan cancelled an annual high-level meeting with the United States after the Trump administration demanded it spend more on defence.
Japan regards the security environment surrounding the country as the gravest since the end of World War Two due to destabilising factors in the region, including China's military expansion and North Korea's missile and nuclear programmes.
Japan already hosts the largest concentration of US forces overseas, including an aircraft carrier, a Marine expeditionary unit and dozens of fighter jets. - Reuters
