Category: Japan

Japan’s defense budget request indicates that they realize the future of warfare is unmanned systems:

Japan’s Ministry of Defense on Friday unveiled a record-high defense spending request of $60.1 billion for fiscal 2026, citing what it called severe and continuing security threats from China and North Korea. The proposal, which would mark Japan’s 14th consecutive annual increase in defense spending, is about $1 billion higher than the current fiscal year’s $59.1 billion budget. (…….)

The budget emphasizes standoff defense, unmanned systems and cross-domain operations to counter increasingly diverse, complex and advanced threats, according to the Defense Ministry document. About $874.8 million is earmarked for unmanned aircraft and unmanned surface and underwater vessels as part of the ministry’s Synchronized, Hybrid, Integrated and Enhanced Littoral Defense program, or SHIELD, set to launch by the end of fiscal 2027. (……)

The ministry also seeks about $7 billion for standoff defense capabilities, including $207.3 million to begin mass production of hypersonic weapons, which travel at speeds above Mach 5 and are difficult to intercept.

Stars & Stripes

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This is actually a little surprising to me that President Lee did not hedge on maintaining the forced labor and comfort women agreements with Japan. It is good to see that he is maintaining policy consistency between governments. We will see what happens in the future though when he needs a distraction from some domestic political scandal of some kind. It always seems like that is the time ROK politicians play the anti-Japan card:

On relations with Japan, Lee said his government will uphold past agreements on the issues of wartime forced labor and former sex slave for Japanese troops, euphemistically called “comfort women.”

“It is very difficult for the South Korean people to accept these agreements,” he said in the interview. “But as they are promises made between countries, it would be undesirable to overturn them.”

Although Lee had previously criticized the agreements, he said that as president he intends to honor them in the interest of bilateral relations, noting his dual responsibility to ensure policy consistency and maintain national trust while also considering the views of the Korean public, victims and their bereaved families.

He also expressed hope that Seoul and Tokyo can confront painful historical issues squarely and move relations forward.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

So far President Lee is trying to maintain positive relations with Tokyo. How long will it be though before he brings up Dokdo, comfort women, or some other hotly contested topic to deflect attention from a domestic issue?:

President Lee Jae Myung will visit Tokyo on Aug. 23 to hold talks with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Lee’s office said Wednesday.

The meeting will involve a dinner hosted by Ishiba during Lee’s two-day working visit while on his way to Washington to meet US President Donald Trump on Aug. 25.

Lee’s trip to Japan is meant to resume a shuttle diplomacy — through which leaders of the two countries take turns traveling to a counterpart’s country frequently without diplomatic formalities — Lee’s spokesperson Kang Yu-jung said in a briefing at the presidential office in Seoul.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.

This was a pretty big screw up by whoever was captaining the ship:

Japan’s Ministry of Defense has denied a Japanese media report this week that Chinese naval vessels fired two warning shots at a Japanese warship that sailed into China’s territorial waters last year. Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force destroyer JS Suzutsuki on July 4, 2024, inadvertently sailed within 12 nautical miles of the coast of Zhejiang province, Kyodo News reported at the time.

The Japanese destroyer was monitoring a live-fire exercise by Chinese forces in Hangzhou Bay, according to the report. After repeatedly warning the destroyer to change course, Chinese vessels fired two warning shots — one before it entered territorial waters and another after it crossed into the area, Kyodo reported Sunday, citing unnamed diplomatic sources.

Stars and Stripes

You can read more at the link.