MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 02nd August, 2023) Japan's freshly-published white paper on defense shows its ambition to become a military power under the pretext of threats allegedly emanating from neighboring countries, the Korean Central news Agency (KCNA) has reported, citing a foreign ministry expert.
"As to the 'threats from neighboring countries' mentioned by Japan so often, it is nothing but a smoke screen to justify its moves toward turning itself into a major military power," Kim Sol Hwa, a researcher with the North Korean Foreign Ministry's Institute for Japan Studies, was quoted as saying.
While Japan's defense white paper points to China and Russia as potential sources of threats, it is the United States that "totally destroys the regional peace and stability" by creating a "confrontation alliance in the vast Asia-Pacific region" and sending nuclear strategic assets to the Korean Peninsula and the Taiwan Strait.
Another researcher, Ryu Kyong Chol of the North Korean Korea-Europe Association, said that North Korea believes it is treated as an "enemy" by Western countries conducting joint military drills with South Korea, specifically France.
"Just at this time, France dispatched its fighter planes to the Korean Peninsula which is technically at war. It cannot be construed otherwise than an act of regarding the DPRK as an enemy," Ryu said.
The researcher noted that France should "set right its home situation" aggravated by "the social discord" first, instead of " wasting its energies in the Asia-Pacific region."
France and South Korea last week held their first joint air force exercise as part of Paris' Pegase transcontinental exercise, which involves the deployment of aircraft in East and South Asia.
On July 27, the Japanese Defense Ministry presented its annual defense white paper, in which it said that "North Korea's military activities pose an even more grave and imminent threat to Japan's national security than ever before." The defense department proceeds from the fact that Pyongyang allegedly has 20 nuclear warheads in its possession and the capability to carry out a nuclear strike against Japan.
To counter the North Korean and other threats, the Japanese defense ministry proposed increasing the military budget in the coming years in a number of areas. One of them is strengthening missile counterstriking capabilities as a measure to prevent future enemy attacks. For these purposes, it is planned to allocate 5 trillion Yen ($37 billion), which is 25 times more than in the previous five years. The budget for strengthening the integrated air and missile defense system is also proposed to be tripled to 3 trillion yen.
