This is John Bachelor, conversation with my colleague Josh Rogan of the Washington Post about the significance of Prime Minister Kishita and President Biden looking to the future in a mutual self-defense pack, but at the same time reaching out across

the Pacific to Australia, to the Philippines, to South Korea, to everyone concerned with the predation from the People's Republic of China

and its Russian ally. And this instance Kishida is leading Japan's

rearmament and ready to resist a pressure by the People's Republic and

by the Kremlin.

Here's Josh Rogin to describe the transformation underway in Japan.

Right. Well, you know, having traveled to Japan recently and I interviewed Kishta myself last year,

I can tell you that, you know know the amount of change in Japan's

national security and foreign policy stance in the last few years has been

greater than than the last 80 years combined and just a lot of it is due to what happened in Ukraine and a lot of

is due to what's going on with China and basically what we've seen is that

Japan is Kishuta has promised to double Japan's defense budget from 1% to 2%.

That's a $50 billion a year increase over the course of five years.

He's acquired offensive missiles for the first time.

He's supplied Patriot batteries to the United States to

backfill are sending them to Ukraine. He completely changed Japan's stance

towards Russia. Under the mantra, which I think is true

Ukraine today could be East Asia tomorrow

so I think the the change in Japan is it's

crosses societal

but to be sure there is a minority backlash and the people in some of these islands

for sure are worried about it, they increased militarization and what it means for them.

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