Former Russian President Says Japanese Militarization Complicates the Situation in the Asia Pacific

JAKARTA - Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council and former President Dmitry Medvedev said on Sunday that Japan's "militarization" was complicating the situation in the Asia-Pacific region.

Medvedev said Japan, with help from the United States, was expanding its military infrastructure and increasing its arms purchases.

"It is regrettable that the Japanese authorities are pursuing a course towards new militarization in this country," Medvedev said, citing Reuters from TASS September 4.

"Troop exercises are taking place near the Kuril Islands, which seriously complicates the situation in the Asia-Pacific region," he stressed.

Last week, Japan's Defense Ministry on Thursday proposed a budget for the next fiscal year of USD 53 billion or around IDR 807,985,000,000,000, the largest record since the Second World War, aiming to double defense spending to 2 percent of gross domestic product by 2018. 2027, citing an increasingly assertive China and an unpredictable North Korea.

Separately, Russia decided this year to declare September 3 - the day after Japan's surrender in the Second World War - as "Victory Day over Militaristic Japan", prompting protests from Tokyo.

It is known that Russia and Japan have a complex relationship marked by decades of territorial disputes over several small islands controlled by Russia off the coast of Hokkaido, which Moscow calls the Southern Kuriles, but which Japan claims as the Northern Territories.

Disputes over the territory, which the Soviet Union seized in the final days of the Second World War, have prevented Tokyo and Moscow from reaching a peace treaty that would formally end hostilities.