Japan Fires Back at China's 'Militarism' Label, But the Numbers Tell a More Complicated Story

At the 2026 Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, Japan's Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi delivered a pointed rebuttal to Chinese accusations that Tokyo is reverting to its imperial-era militarism. "There's a country that has a huge arsenal of nuclear weapons and strategic bombers," Koizumi told the assembly of defense officials and analysts. "Japan has neither of such weapons, and yet Japan is labelled 'new militarism'?" [1]

The retort drew applause from some delegates, but China's Major General Meng Xiangqing was unsparing in his response: "I deeply doubt whether a country that has not thoroughly eradicated the toxic legacy of militarism is qualified to talk extensively about defense cooperation on international occasions" [2].

The exchange crystallized a confrontation that extends far beyond rhetoric. Japan is in the midst of its most significant military expansion since 1945, while China continues to build what is already the world's largest navy and fastest-growing nuclear arsenal. The question of who is arming and why — and whether either side's framing holds up under scrutiny — demands a closer look at the numbers.

The Budget: From Pacifist Floor to NATO Ceiling

For decades after World War II, Japan informally capped defense spending at approximately 1% of GDP — a self-imposed limit reflecting the pacifist spirit of its postwar constitution. That constraint is now history.

Japan's defense budget has nearly doubled in four years, rising from ¥5.4 trillion in FY2022 to ¥9.3 trillion (approximately $58 billion) in FY2026 [3]. The increase accelerated after the Kishida government's December 2022 National Security Strategy, which committed Japan to spending 2% of GDP on defense by FY2027 — a target the government claims it already met in FY2025 at approximately $70 billion when supplementary spending is included [4].

Source: Japan Ministry of Defense

Data as of Jan 1, 2026CSV

The five-year Defense Buildup Program covering FY2023-2027 allocates a total of ¥43 trillion ($275 billion), a sum that positions Japan as potentially the world's third-largest defense spender after the United States and China [3]. For context, Japan's GDP stood at approximately ¥677 trillion as of January 2026, up 3.9% year-over-year [5].

Source: FRED / Federal Reserve

Data as of Jan 1, 2026CSV

The 2% target aligns Japan with the NATO guideline that has become a benchmark for Western alliance burden-sharing. Several NATO members — including Germany, France, and Canada — have only recently achieved or are still working toward the same threshold. Japan is not a NATO member, but the alignment is deliberate: it signals to Washington that Tokyo is a serious security partner.

China's Arsenal: What the Numbers Show

Koizumi's central argument — that China, not Japan, is the one arming at an alarming rate — has substantial empirical support.

China's official defense budget reached RMB 1.91 trillion ($276.7 billion) in 2026, a 7% nominal increase over 2025 [6]. But official figures are widely understood to understate actual spending. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) estimated China's real defense expenditure at approximately $318 billion in 2024 [7], while some analyses place the figure even higher. By any measure, China spends roughly five times what Japan does on defense.

Source: SIPRI / CSIS

Data as of Mar 1, 2026CSV

The nuclear dimension is stark. China possesses approximately 600 nuclear warheads as of early 2026, with the Federation of American Scientists estimating the count at around 620 [8]. The Pentagon projects that China's arsenal will exceed 1,000 warheads by 2030. Three massive ICBM silo fields — at Yumen in Gansu (120 silos), Hami in Xinjiang (110 silos), and Yulin/Ordos in Inner Mongolia (90 silos) — are now being populated with solid-fuel missiles [8]. New delivery systems including the DF-61 ICBM and hypersonic anti-ship missiles like the YJ-21 were showcased at China's September 2025 military parade [9].

China's naval expansion is equally striking. The People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) operates the world's largest fleet by hull count, and a new Type 096 nuclear ballistic missile submarine is under construction at Bohai Shipyard, expected to carry up to 24 submarine-launched ballistic missiles [8].

Japan possesses none of these capabilities. It has no nuclear weapons, no strategic bombers, no ballistic missiles, and no aircraft carriers in the traditional sense. On raw numbers, Koizumi's comparison holds.

Article 9: The Constitutional Tightrope

But the debate over "militarism" is not only about arsenal size. It is about direction and intent — and that is where Japan's constitutional framework becomes central.

Article 9 of Japan's 1947 constitution states that "the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes." It further declares that "land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained" [10].

This language has been subject to continuous reinterpretation. The Self-Defense Forces, established in 1954, were themselves a workaround — justified under the theory that Article 9 does not prohibit self-defense. In 2014, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe approved a cabinet reinterpretation allowing "collective self-defense," enabling Japan to aid allies under attack. The Diet codified this in 2015 legislation [10].

The 2022 National Security Strategy went further, formally introducing "counterstrike capabilities" — the ability to strike enemy bases to neutralize an imminent threat. The legal basis rests on the "Three Conditions for Use of Force," originally articulated in 1954: there must be a threat to national survival, no alternative means of response, and the use of force must be limited to the minimum necessary [11]. Government lawyers argue that a counterstrike against, say, a North Korean missile battery about to launch falls within self-defense. Critics counter that this is a distinction without a meaningful difference from offensive capability, since the same weapons — Tomahawk cruise missiles, long-range standoff munitions — can be used for pre-emptive strikes regardless of stated doctrine [12].

Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has gone further still, proposing a formal constitutional amendment to explicitly recognize the Self-Defense Forces and clarify the scope of permissible military activity. The proposal remains politically contentious; amending the constitution requires two-thirds majorities in both houses of the Diet and a national referendum [13].

Offensive or Defensive? The Weapons Tell Two Stories

Japan's government insists its buildup is "exclusively defensive." The acquisitions complicate that claim.

The Maritime Self-Defense Force is fitting its Aegis destroyers with Tomahawk cruise missiles, with the JS Chōkai currently undergoing modifications in the United States. Live-fire tests are expected in summer 2026 [14]. The Tomahawk Block V has a range exceeding 1,600 kilometers — sufficient to reach targets deep inside China or North Korea from Japanese waters.

Japan has ordered 147 F-35 fighters — 105 F-35As and 42 short-takeoff/vertical-landing F-35Bs — making it the largest non-U.S. F-35 operator [15]. The F-35B is specifically designed for operations from aircraft carriers or smaller amphibious ships. Japan's two Izumo-class helicopter destroyers are being modified with heat-resistant flight decks to operate the F-35B, creating de facto light aircraft carriers.

In April 2023, the Ministry of Defense signed contracts worth $2.83 billion with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries for standoff missile development, including a submarine-launched variant [16]. Japan has also received its first Norwegian-made Joint Strike Missiles for integration with F-35A fighters [17].

Separately, Japan is building what the Taipei Times described as a "missile archipelago" across the Ryukyu island chain [18]. The islands of Yonaguni, Ishigaki, and Miyako — stretching toward Taiwan — are being fortified with Type 12 anti-ship missile batteries, radar systems, and ammunition storage facilities.

Defenders argue that these are precisely the weapons a defensive island nation needs against a missile-heavy adversary: standoff range to keep threats at distance, stealth fighters to maintain air superiority, and distributed coastal defenses to deny maritime approaches. Critics argue that long-range land-attack cruise missiles, carrier-capable strike fighters, and forward-deployed island garrisons add up to a force projection capability that goes well beyond territorial defense.

The Alliance Web: New Partners, New Obligations

Japan's military transformation is not happening in isolation. Since 2022, Tokyo has woven a thickening web of security partnerships across the Indo-Pacific.

Japan concluded Reciprocal Access Agreements (RAAs) with Australia in 2022 and the United Kingdom in 2023, streamlining the legal framework for joint exercises and troop deployments [19]. In July 2024, Japan and the Philippines signed their own RAA — the first such agreement Japan has reached with an Asian country [20]. Discussions about rotational deployment of Japanese forces to Philippine bases are ongoing.

The Japan-U.S.-Philippines trilateral partnership has accelerated rapidly. The first trilateral summit was held in Washington in April 2024, building on a Trilateral Defense Policy Dialogue launched after President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.'s inauguration [21]. Japan now participates alongside Australian forces in the annual Balikatan exercises in the Philippines. Japan has also provided twelve coast guard vessels to the Philippines, with five more planned [21].

The U.S.-Japan alliance itself has deepened. The two countries agreed in 2023 to begin joint development of the Glide Phase Interceptor, a next-generation missile defense system [16]. Command integration between U.S. Forces Japan and the Self-Defense Forces has intensified, with closer coordination on intelligence sharing and operational planning for potential Taiwan contingencies.

These arrangements represent obligations Japan did not carry five years ago. A Reciprocal Access Agreement is not a mutual defense treaty, but it creates the infrastructure — legal, logistical, and political — for rapid combined military operations.

Who Profits: Defense Industry and the Buildup

Japan's defense industry is a primary beneficiary of the spending surge. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, the country's largest defense contractor, secured the $2.83 billion standoff missile contracts and leads production of the next-generation fighter being developed jointly with the UK and Italy [16]. Kawasaki Heavy Industries and ShinMaywa Industries also hold significant defense portfolios spanning submarines, patrol aircraft, and amphibious platforms [22].

U.S. defense firms maintain a substantial footprint. Lockheed Martin supplies the F-35 fleet. Raytheon (now RTX) provides Tomahawk missiles and Patriot air defense systems through Foreign Military Sales. Boeing and Northrop Grumman contribute surveillance and command systems [22]. The FMS route, while ensuring interoperability with U.S. forces, means a significant share of Japan's defense yen flows to American contractors.

The Takaichi government has also loosened Japan's long-standing restrictions on arms exports, allowing the transfer of lethal equipment to partner nations for the first time. This opens potential new revenue streams for Japanese defense firms but also moves Japan further from the pacifist industrial posture it maintained for decades.

The Weight of History

China's objections to Japanese rearmament are not purely strategic. They are rooted in specific historical atrocities that remain central to national identity in China and South Korea.

The Nanjing Massacre of 1937-1938, in which Japanese troops killed an estimated 200,000-300,000 Chinese civilians and prisoners of war, is commemorated annually in China and inscribed in UNESCO's Memory of the World Register — over Japan's objections. Tokyo withheld approximately ¥3.85 billion in UNESCO funding after the registration was approved in 2015 [23].

The "comfort women" system — the Japanese military's coerced sexual servitude of women across occupied Asia — remains a source of deep grievance in South Korea and China. Joint Chinese-Korean applications to register comfort women archives with UNESCO have been blocked under rules that allow any single member state to lodge an indefinite objection [23]. Japanese government-approved textbook revisions describing comfort women as willing participants have further inflamed the issue [24].

Unit 731, the Imperial Japanese Army's biological and chemical warfare research unit that conducted lethal human experiments on Chinese, Korean, and other prisoners in Manchuria, represents another dimension of wartime conduct that Japan has been slower to officially acknowledge than Germany was with comparable Nazi crimes.

Major General Meng's question at the Shangri-La Dialogue — whether Japan has "thoroughly eradicated the toxic legacy of militarism" — resonates differently depending on the audience. For Japanese officials, the question is a rhetorical weapon designed to constrain legitimate self-defense. For Chinese and Korean publics, it reflects genuine uncertainty about whether a country that disputes the details of its wartime record can be trusted with a growing military.

Polling bears this out: 81% of Chinese respondents express an unfavorable view of Japan, and 77% say Japan has not sufficiently apologized for wartime actions [24]. Japanese public opinion on remilitarization is more nuanced. Research suggests a shift from pacifism toward "defensive realism" — support for a stronger military posture tied to specific threats rather than ideological militarism [25]. Surveys show broad support for strengthening defenses against North Korean missiles but less enthusiasm for constitutional amendment or forward-deployed strike capabilities.

The Tripwire Scenarios

Japanese defense planners are publicly preparing for three principal contingencies.

A Taiwan crisis. In November 2025, Prime Minister Takaichi declared that any Chinese military action against Taiwan would constitute a "survival-threatening situation" for Japan — language that could trigger the exercise of collective self-defense [26]. Japan's southwestern island chain lies within 110 kilometers of Taiwan at its closest point. A Chinese blockade or invasion of Taiwan would almost certainly involve operations in waters and airspace adjacent to Japanese territory.

A Senkaku incursion. Chinese coast guard vessels conduct regular patrols around the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, which Japan administers and China claims. An escalation from gray-zone patrol to seizure would trigger an unambiguous Japanese self-defense response and almost certainly invoke the U.S.-Japan security treaty [18].

A North Korean missile launch. North Korea's ICBM and nuclear programs provide the most straightforward justification for Japan's counterstrike doctrine. A launch toward Japan or U.S. bases in Japan would activate both national self-defense and alliance obligations.

Each scenario carries escalation risks. The missile batteries on Yonaguni and Ishigaki, positioned to deny Chinese naval approaches to Taiwan, could be read in Beijing as preparation for Japanese intervention in what China regards as an internal matter. Japan's Tomahawk acquisition, while framed as defensive deterrence, gives Tokyo a first-strike option against mainland targets that did not previously exist. The question is whether deterrence reduces the probability of conflict or whether the accumulation of strike capabilities on both sides of the East China Sea creates the conditions for miscalculation.

The Core Tension

Koizumi's argument at the Shangri-La Dialogue rests on a factual asymmetry that is real: China's military spending dwarfs Japan's by a factor of five, its nuclear arsenal is growing at a pace unmatched by any other signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and its naval fleet is the world's largest. By any conventional metric, Japan is not the aggressor in this arms dynamic.

But Meng's counterargument — that the direction of change matters as much as the absolute numbers — also has force. Japan is transitioning from a strictly defensive posture to one that includes long-range strike, carrier aviation, forward island garrisons, and an expanding network of military partnerships. The rate of change in Japanese defense spending since 2022 exceeds the rate of change in Chinese spending over the same period, even if the absolute gap remains vast.

Neither frame tells the complete story. Japan faces genuine security threats from China's military expansion, North Korean provocations, and an increasingly volatile regional environment. Its alliance obligations to the United States create additional incentives to build interoperable, deployable forces. At the same time, the specific weapons being acquired — Tomahawks, F-35Bs, long-range standoff missiles — create capabilities that exist independently of the intentions of any particular government. Intentions can change; capabilities persist.

The debate at the Shangri-La Dialogue will not resolve these tensions. What it revealed is that both Tokyo and Beijing are building military power while accusing the other of destabilizing the region — and that the historical, legal, and strategic arguments each side marshals contain elements that are simultaneously valid and incomplete.