Chinese marine surveillance ships have continued their regular patrols in the territorial waters surrounding the Diaoyu Islands on Feb. 15, 2013. The destination is the waters 3-nautical miles from the Diaoyu Islands. The 4-hour patrol was completed after the fleet sailed around Diaoyu Island and its affiliated islets.(Xinhua/Zhang Jiansong)

 
Analysts have said that the 2.8 percent hike in Japan's defense budget for fiscal year 2014 indicates that the country is entering a period of military expansion, amid tensions with China over territorial disputes.

The newly approved budget, which was passed by the Japanese cabinet Tuesday, stands at 4,884.8 billion yen ($46.9 billion), up 131 billion yen from the initial budget for fiscal year 2013, marking the second straight year of increase.

According to figures from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Japan's military spending ranked 5th worldwide in 2012, after the US, China, Russia and Britain.

Song Zhongping, a military commentator, told the Global Times there is actually an unwritten limit for Japan's military spending under its pacifist constitution, which means that its defense budget should not surpass 1 percent of its GDP. However, the new budget has surpassed this informal cap and this will raise concerns among Japan's neighbors.

"Besides its released defense budget, there is more hidden military spending behind the budget release," claimed Song, noting that Japan's recently passed secrecy law will allow it to hide the full details of its military spending from the public.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who has been in power for just one year since his re-election for a second time, has been trying to normalize his country, and the core of the normalization plan is in the military.

With the newly approved defense budget, Japan is set to spend a large percentage of the budget on military hardware.

Around 63.8 billion yen will be earmarked for the purchase of four F-35 stealth fighter jets, and 38.3 billion yen to buy equipment and train personnel to fly the fighter jets. The total number of F-35s will eventually rise to 42 under the medium-term  defense buildup plan, according to Kyodo News.

In addition, the country will allocate 1.7 billion yen to purchase two amphibious vehicles and 100 million yen to study the introduction of the US military's Osprey transport aircraft, as 17 units are scheduled to join the Self-Defense Force (SDF) under the medium-term plan, reported Kyodo. It noted that the purchase was meant to brace for contingencies on remote islands, namely the Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea, which are at the center of a territorial dispute with China.

"The rise in Japan's military expenditure mainly targets China," Feng Zhaokui, a senior Japanese expert of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times, noting that Japan has begun to shift its military power to its south and the west, the areas closest to China.

Japan's purchase of advanced weapons from the US has made East Asia a showroom for sophisticated weapons, Feng said.

Liu Junhong, a research fellow with the Institute of Japanese Studies at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, said the increase in Japan's military spending will help Tokyo implement its new national security strategy, which said Japan will be a "proactive" contributor to world peace.

Japan's new defense strategy not just simply requires defending the security of the nation, but also is a strategy that could include a "preemptive strike." Japan is in the midst of a military expansion, he noted.