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Japan to increase military budget amid islands dispute with China

Japan to increase military budget amid islands dispute with China
Japan is set to increase its military budget in 2013 for the first time in more than a decade amid ongoing territorial dispute with China.

Japan’s newly-elected Liberal Democratic Party has decided to raise the defense budget by more than 100 billion yen (USD 1.15 billion), an unnamed official from the party said on Tuesday.

“We have decided that the additional budget will be used for research into a new radar system as well as fuel and other maintenance costs for early-warning aircraft,” the official added.

This comes as the Japanese government has summoned China’s envoy to Tokyo to protest at the presence of Chinese ships in waters around a group of islands in the East China Sea claimed by both nations.

According to a Tuesday statement by Japan’s Foreign Ministry, the deputy minister for foreign affairs, Akitaka Saiki told Chinese Ambassador Cheng Yonghua to ask his respective government to stop sending ships to waters around the disputed islands.

Japan and China remain locked in a bitter territorial dispute over the island chain controlled by Japan under the name Senkakus, but claimed by China as the Diaoyus.

Tensions heightened between the two countries after Japan signed a deal on September 11, 2012 to buy three of the islands from their private Japanese owner in line with plans to nationalize the archipelago.

The owner of the islands would have exclusive oil, mineral, and fishing rights in the surrounding waters.

The Tuesday protest move came a day after four state-owned Chinese surveillance ships entered the waters surrounding the islands.

On Monday, Japan’s coastguard issued a statement saying that the vessels were spotted moving within 12 nautical miles of the disputed territory.

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