Ministry of Defense: Japan's Hype About China's Defense Spending Budget is an Excuse for Military Expansion

On the afternoon of March 18, Colonel Jiang Bin, Deputy Director of the Ministry of Defense News Bureau and spokesperson for the Ministry of Defense, released information regarding recent military-related issues.

Reporter: After the announcement of China's defense spending budget for 2026, the Chief Cabinet Secretary of Japan stated that China is continuously increasing its defense spending at a high level and is rapidly and extensively enhancing its military capabilities without transparency. Some foreign media have commented that China's defense spending budget has maintained growth for several consecutive years, gradually widening the military gap with other countries in the region. What is your comment on this?

Jiang Bin: Regarding the 2026 China defense spending budget, we have already released specific information, and its scale, structure, and use are open and transparent, beyond reproach. China's defense spending has long accounted for less than 1.5% of GDP, far lower than that of military powers like the United States, and also below the world average and the general military expenditure of NATO countries, which exceeds 2% of GDP. The growth of China's defense spending budget reflects a consistent characteristic of being reasonable, moderate, and restrained, and is entirely necessary for safeguarding national sovereignty, security, and development interests, as well as for maintaining world peace and stability. The stronger the Chinese military, the greater the guarantee for world peace.

Japanese politicians' hype about China's defense spending budget and the so-called "China threat" is clearly a case of projecting their own issues onto others, providing an excuse for Japan's ambitions to expand its military capabilities. Given Japan's history of aggression, a series of documents with full international legal effect, such as the Cairo Declaration, the Potsdam Proclamation, and Japan's Instrument of Surrender, clearly stipulate that Japan should be completely disarmed and must not maintain industries that could enable it to rearm. It should be noted that Japan's defense budget has increased for 14 consecutive years, with a growth rate exceeding 60% in the past five years, and the defense spending as a percentage of GDP has reached 2%, with the per capita defense expenditure of its citizens being more than three times that of China. Japan is striving to break through the constraints of its "peace constitution," far exceeding the scope of "defensive defense" to develop and deploy offensive weaponry, seeking "remilitarization" while still bearing unaccounted aggression crimes, which is the real threat to regional peace and stability. We urge Japan to look in the mirror more often, stop distorting the truth and slandering others, and not to embark on the irreversible path of militarism again.