SINGAPORE — Japan on June 2 expressed concern over what it called a lack of transparency in China’s massive defense spending, saying the secrecy posed a “threat” to Tokyo.
China’s military budget jumped 11.2 percent year on year to $106 billion in 2012, a rise that has caused unease around the region and especially in Tokyo, Japan’s Parliamentary Senior Vice-Minister of Defense Shu Watanabe said.
“There is expansion of the military budget and that is not transparent,” he told defense chiefs and senior officials attending an Asia security summit, the Shangri-La Dialogue, in Singapore.
Because of the lack of transparency, Japan is in the dark about the details of China's military spending, he said.
“Chinese military budget growth, what sort of capacities they are trying to expand and what sort of purposes they have are not transparent and in that sense it is a threat,” Watanabe added.
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