Japan should not rely solely on debt issuance and must instead come up with a stable source of revenue to fund an expected rise in defence spending, a senior official of the ruling coalition said on Friday, flagging the chance of a future tax hike.
In the face of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and an increasingly tense situation in Asia with missile tests from North Korea and a more assertive China, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has pledged to "drastically" increase Japan's defence spending within the next five years.
Kishida's administration and his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) have been mum on how to fund the increase in spending, which would strain Japan's already tattered finances.
