The Kishida government wants to increase defense from NATO to increase defense expenses.

Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Wenxiong Visual China Data Map

On September 24th, a number of Japanese government relevant persons revealed that around the "Interim Defense Reserve Plan" that gives the total amount of weapons and equipment in the future, the 5 -year total funding of the Japanese government's discussion may exceed 40 trillion yuan in the 50 trillion yuan in 2023 years. The yen (about 1988.3 billion yuan). According to a report by Kyodo News Agency on the 25th, the plan currently discussed will be officially finalized by the end of the year, and the next stage of the Japanese Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Defense will also conduct detailed consultations.

In fact, as early as a few months ago, Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Yoshiko issued a signal to increase defense expenses. He stated at the Japanese -American summit meeting in May this year that he would fundamentally strengthen the defense and decide to increase a considerable amount of defense defense. fee. In June, the Japanese Cabinet Conference adopted the "basic policy of economic and fiscal operations and reform", and proposed that it will fundamentally strengthen the defense within 5 years. On August 31, the Ministry of Defense listed the preliminary budget of 5594.7 billion yen in fiscal year, and there were more than 90 "issues requirements" that did not represent specific amounts. The Japanese media predict the final budget of the fiscal year in fiscal year or about 6.5 trillion yen. This means that next year will be the starting year of the Kishida government's sharp breakthrough in defense expenses, which will move towards the 2%target direction.

At the same time, issues such as Russia and Ukraine and the surrounding situations of Japan are fermented in Japanese society, and Japanese citizens have a loose attitude towards increased defense expenses. The Japanese media FNN telephone survey showed that 62%of the respondents agreed to increase defense expenses, and 46.9%of the respondents accepted the proportion of defensive expenses by 1%-2.2%, and 15.1%agreed to increase by more than 2%. The public opinion survey of the Japanese current Affairs Communications also shows that the proportion of respondents who agreed to increase defense expenses is close to 50%, 26.7%of people accept 1%-2%of defense increases, and 23%of people support more than 2%. The proportion of Japanese citizens supports the increase of defensive expenses is close to half or even more, but there are differences in the increase in the increase in defense expenses. This provides a favorable public opinion environment for the restrictions of the Kishida government to break through the defense expenses. However, under the high trend of the national fiscal deficit, the increase in the amount of defensive expenses is huge, and the source of defense expenses has become a problem for public opinion.

Increasing defense, where does the money come from?

On September 8th, Kishida announced the newly set up "Meeting on the Increase of Defense Consuction and Source". At the end of this month, the first meeting will be held to negotiate a detailed consultation to determine the source of funding sources. The meeting was composed of 10 people such as the former ambassador to the United States, Sasaki Jiangxian, and other 10 people. It discussed the issuance of government bonds, increased consumption tax, and cut expenditure. The overall research of the necessary defense, budget scale, and ensuring wealth was submitted at the end of the year. Report. At present, Japanese society has begun many discussions on the source of defense expenses.

1. Tighten fiscal and reduce funds in other fields. In the budget expenditure of the Ministry of Finance in Japan, the increase in public utilities, education and defense budget expenditures has changed significantly. After the second administration of the late Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Japan's defense expenses increased year after year. Take 2015 to 2022 as an example. Japanese defense costs increased by 400 billion yen, and public institutions increased by 100 billion yen. Education and science Revitalizing costs increased by 64 billion yen, and funds other than social security fares decreased by 300 billion yen. Under the upper limit of the Japanese government's control of the total financial expenditure, the increase in Japanese defense expenses over the years has been achieved by reducing funds in other fields. If you want to achieve 2%of the GDP of defense expenses, without significantly increased the total fiscal expenditure, it is bound to continue to compress the funds of other fields to expand the defense expenses. This will inevitably affect the normal budget of other provincial departments, which will cause serious insufficient investment in public causes and educational research in Japanese society.

2. Added government bonds. In the case of fiscal tightening, it is not impossible to increase defensive expenses, and it is recommended that the problem of insufficient defense expenses is solved by increasing the issuance of national bonds. Benefit from this security and understand. However, the problem is that the scale of Japanese Treasury bonds is large enough, and defense equipment has limits and technical restrictions. On August 10, the Ministry of Finance of Japan issued data. The "national debt" calculated by Japan's Treasury, loan and government short -term securities reached 125.51932 trillion yen. The per capita liabilities exceeded 10 million yen. Essence In the case of severe long -term security environment in Japan, the defense equipment purchased by government bonds has shifted over time and military technology development, and compared with the military strength of neighboring countries, the situation of old equipment and unable to compete with external forces needs to be continuously purchased. More advanced equipment. The use of government bonds can only meet short -term security needs, and the burden of repayment of principal and interest must bear it for a long time.

3. Increase consumption tax. Taking the defense fee of 5400.5 billion yen in 2022 as an example, to increase the defense expenses to 6 trillion yen, the consumption tax rate is 0.2 percentage points. At present, the Japanese consumption tax rate is 10%. Previously, it had had a negative impact on residents' consumption and economic growth. Now that the new crown epidemic has continued to affect, the Russian -Ukraine conflict has led to rising global energy prices. Japan's domestic input inflation has intensified, and the consumer price index exceeds 2%. The Japanese party even demanded that the government reduces the consumption tax rate. The current consumption tax is mainly used as a financial source of social security fees that are continuously expanded. In this case, increasing consumption tax solution to defense expenses will inevitably increase the burden on national life and inhibit domestic consumption demand and economic prosperity recovery. 4. Use supplementary budget to fill in the increase in defense expenses. In addition to the large -scale fiscal budget every fiscal year, the Japanese government also uses the dilemma of supplementary budget elasticity to solve the problem of the problems that occur in the economic and social development of the country but insufficient budgets. The former Prime Minister Abe has repeatedly transferred the budget to the increase in defense during the administration. In November 2021, the temporary meeting of the Japanese Cabinet replenished a budget of up to 773.8 billion yen in defense, setting up the year that was used for the most defense in the replenishment of budgets over the years. The total Japanese defense expenses exceeded 6 trillion yen for the first time. Supplementary budgets have become a hotbed for the Japanese government's fiscal expenditure. If you want to achieve a 2%proportion of defense expenses, it is equivalent to the final reaching 10 trillion scale, and it is difficult to continue by replenishing budgets only every year.

Therefore, for the other side of the field, any of the above is the best way to resolve the increase in defense. This has become an important problem for Kishida Cabinet and the focus of public opinion. It will also become the main content of the discussion of the knowledge of insight.

"Only Defense Casino Theory" cannot really solve Japan's security concerns

There are also differences in the Japanese Liberal Party in the discussion of increasing defense expenses. A radicals represented by the Five Classics of the Security Investigation President Ono Temple and the Minister of Warriking Kishiku, and advocated that the defense expenses accounted for more than 2%of the NATO model of more than 2%of the NATO model to fundamentally strengthen the defense; The stable faction represented by Yi and other advocates cumulative increases, and it is necessary to propose the fullness and strengthening of defense, but the defense problem is by no means set the numerical goal first, and then the simple practice of adding equipment in this direction.

At present, Kishida Wenxiong said on the one hand that it will increase a considerable amount of defense expenses, and on the other hand, it may not have to have numbers first. The current Minister of Defense, Hamada, said at a press conference that the Ministry of Defense will gradually strengthen the necessary defense affairs in response to the current security environment, and the content and scale of the defense expenses will be left to the government for discussion.

Social opinion also expresses different views on this. Some think that security can not only be realized by arms, but also involves economic, finance, finance and other fields. If the Japanese government ignores the severe financial situation of its country, even if the defense fee is increased to 2%of the GDP, it may not be able to effectively protect national life and property and Japan's security. There are also opinions that you should carefully study what defense Japan is. Promoting defense for the standard as the standard will lead to invalid defense equipment purchased at higher prices, and the purchased equipment must also have corresponding personnel equipment, otherwise the equipment cannot be put into actual combat use. At present, the lack of membership of the Japanese Self -Defense Force is obvious. Even if the budget purchase of defense equipment is increased, it is impossible to increase the staff of the Self -Defense Force and train them.

Some people are worried that Japan ’s defense expenditure multiplication plan will cause suspicion from neighboring countries. Breaks from each other may lead to military reserve competitions. Japan’ s defensive expenses should not be measured by scale, but to efficiently use defense expenses to improve their defense. At the same time, the Gongming Party jointly governed with the Liberal Democratic Party is cautious about increasing defense expenses and expanding the scope of the Self -Defense Force. In October this year, the Liberal Democratic Party will negotiate with the Gongming Party, which will contain the wealth of the government's defense expenses. In addition, in the temporary parliament held in October, defense expenses are expected to be one of the focus of the ruling party and the opposition party. These will all affect the defense expenses, scale and financial resources proposed at the end of the year.

It can be seen that there is different cognition of Japanese public opinion on increasing defense expenses to solve security concerns. If the defense expenses increase by 2%in the next five years, the world rankings of Japanese defense expenditure spending will rise from 9th to 3rd. This cannot help but attract the attention of the international community, including neighboring countries. The defense of such a huge defense expenses can really form a strong deterrent and response to Japan, so as to ensure the safety of national life and property? The answer is not known. However, it can be determined that the great increase in defense expenses, Japanese citizens will bear the burden of heavy debt, affect the realization of domestic economic recovery and financial improvement, and even cause the alertness of the surrounding neighboring countries to the Japanese military power. Essence

On the other side of the field, due to the recent "unified education" and "Abe national funeral" issues, the support rate of Kishida Cabinet has fallen to the lowest point since ruling.Recently, a number of Japanese media surveys showed that the Kishida cabinet's does not support the support rate, and the support rate has remained only about 40%.This indicates that the future road of Prime Minister Kishida is more difficult.On the one hand, it is necessary to practice commitment to strengthen defense, expand the necessary defense budget, meet the requirements of domestic conservative forces, and strive for the stability of the basic market.On the other hand, we must take care of the people's concerns about the great increase in the burden of defense expenses, avoiding the strong rebound of public opinion, and hitting the support rate of Kishida Cabinet. This may cause him to encounter the internal palace of the Liberal Democratic Party or to launch a case of unscrupulous confidence in the cabinet.Therefore, Kishida must be weighed between the two forces, and the problem of increasing defense expenditure in accordance with the domestic situation should be cautious.(Shu Biyi, Assistant Researcher at the Institute of International Issues of Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences)

Source: Surging News

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