JAPAN’S Cabinet approved a record-high military spending plan Thursday, endorsing plans to purchase pricey U.S. surveillance drones and F-35 fighter jets as Tokyo steps up cooperation with Washington.

    The 5.1 trillion yen (US$42.1 billion) proposal is part of a 96.7 trillion yen national budget plan for the year beginning April 2016, also an all-time high. The entire package requires parliamentary approval.

    Military spending would rise 1.5 percent from this year, the fourth annual increase under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who ended a decade of defense budget cuts.

    The defense budget is the first since Japan enacted new security legislation in September enhancing the country’s military role and since Japan revised its bilateral defense guidelines with the U.S. earlier in the year to allow broader cooperation.

    The new security law divided Japan’s public opinion, with opponents saying it would increase a possibility of Japan being embroiled in a U.S.-led war.

    Japan is bolstering surveillance and defense of islands where it has a territorial dispute with China. The budget plan also includes the purchase of an advanced Aegis radar-equipped destroyer with missile-defense capability, submarine construction and sonar development.

    The Defense Ministry plans to spend 14.8 billion yen this year on some of the multibillion-dollar, multi-year purchase of three “Global Hawk” unmanned drones, as well as six F-35 fighter jets for 138 billion yen and a Boeing mid-air refueling aircraft KC-46A at 23 billion yen.  

    (SD-Agencies)