TokYO Kyodo Japan's government said Tuesday it will increase its financial support for U.S. forces stationed in the country to 1.05 trillion yen $9.2 billion under a new five-year agreement starting in fiscal 2022, up 75 billion yen from the previous deal.
The total of 980.1 billion yen for the five years through fiscal 2020 that ended in March means that Japan's latest agreement with the United States means that Tokyo's so-called host nation support will average out at 211 billion yen per year.
As China's military clout grows, the increase will be used to beef up cooperation under their long-standing security alliance.
The average budget for the current fiscal year covers utility costs and wages of Japanese staff at U.S. military bases compares to 201.7 billion yen for the current fiscal year under a one-year tentative deal made in consideration of the U.S. presidential transition.
After U.S. President Donald Trump requested that Japan pay more for American forces, the negotiations over cost-sharing began.
The Trump administration once pushed for Japan's contribution to be quadrupled to $8 billion annually.
The cost-sharing agreements between the two nations are usually signed to cover five-year terms. They settled for a one-year extension of the five-year pact through March this year, as their talks were affected by the change of power from Trump to Joe Biden.
Japanese Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi told reporters as he announced the agreement that they could show their resolve to stand up to the challenge posed by the difficult security environment.
Over the next five years, up to 20 billion yen will be spent to procure a cutting-edge system that will allow Japan's Self-Defense Forces to virtually join large-scale military training held on the U.S. mainland, according to the Japanese government.
Under the new system, Japan's SDF and U.S. forces can conduct joint exercises against imaginary enemies created by artificial intelligence, it said.
Over the five years to set up new military facilities and improve existing ones at US bases, up to 164.1 billion yen will be spent, compared to 103.2 billion yen under the previous agreement.
Japan will shoulder costs associated with the relocation from Okinawa to Alaska to reduce the burden on the southern island prefecture, which hosts the bulk of the U.S. military facilities in Japan.
The U.S. bases' utility costs will be reduced in stages from the current level of 23.4 billion yen annually to 13.3 billion yen by fiscal 2025.