Japan holds first expert panel meeting on revising three security documents

The Japanese government held its first expert panel meeting to discuss revisions to the three security documents at the Prime Minister's Office on Monday, local media reported.

Japan's current National Security Strategy and two related documents, formulated in 2022, were designed to cover the next 10 years, but the government led by Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has decided to move up the timetable to accelerate the revision process.

Increasing defense spending is one of the key topics of the meeting, according to Kyodo News.

The previous revisions to the documents set a goal of gradually hiking Japan's defense-related spending to 2% of gross domestic product, raising total defense expenditures for fiscal years 2023 to 2027 to around 43 trillion yen (about $270 billion). Japan's annual defense budget has since successively exceeded 6 trillion yen, 7 trillion yen, 8 trillion yen and 9 trillion yen from fiscal 2023 onward.

During the meeting, Takaichi also pledged to promote proactive efforts to fundamentally strengthen Japan's defense capabilities and said that the country should prepare for "new ways of warfare" using artificial intelligence and other technologies to carry out sustained combat operations, the report said.

Japanese media previously reported that Takaichi also intends to alter the principle of not introducing nuclear weapons under the country's long-held Three Non-Nuclear Principles when revising the three security documents. Such moves, along with the continued rise in defense outlays, have drawn backlash in Japan.

According to Kyodo News, the expert panel will hold a meeting about once a month before finalizing a proposal around the fall, after which Takaichi's cabinet aims to approve the revision by year-end.

In the previous 2022 revision, Japan decided to acquire counterstrike capabilities, marking a major shift from its exclusively defense-oriented policy under the country's war-renouncing 1947 Constitution.