Comment by Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on Japan's newly revised security and defence doctrines

We noted that Japan passed revisions to three key security documents, including its National Security Strategy, National Defence Strategy and Defence Programme on December 16 of this year.

The content of these doctrines clearly demonstrates that Tokyo has embarked on the path of an unprecedented build-up of its military power, including strike potential. Clearly, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s government is thus rejecting the country’s peaceful development, something that previous generations of politicians persistently championed, and is returning to unlimited militarisation, which will inevitably provoke new security challenges and exacerbate tensions in the Asia-Pacific region. The heightened reaction of neighbouring states to the overhaul of Japan’s military doctrine proves that they share this view.

We would like to remind you that we have long been warning about the dangers of Tokyo's pointed evasion from recognising the WWII results, which provide the foundations for the modern international order. After refusing to condemn the misanthropic ideology of the Nazi regime, the main ally of militaristic Japan in that war, at the UN General Assembly, Japan is now taking consistent steps to revive its military potential, which would enable it to attack neighbouring countries.

It is symptomatic that the decision to increase its defence spending by as much as 2 percent of its GDP was taken amid a less than satisfactory situation in the national economy and the growing structural imbalances in the country’s state budget. This only reinforces the assessment that the Kishida government is prepared to go much further in achieving its military ambitions than the plans they announced, and to get tightly integrated into the US geopolitical games.