TOKYO: The majority of Japanese people do not support raising taxes to fund military expansion, Kyodo reported on Sunday, citing a survey the news agency conducted after the government announced Japan`s biggest military build-up since World War Two.

Japan on Friday announced a $320 billion military spending plan to buy missiles capable of striking China and to ready the country for any sustained conflict, as missile tests by nearby North Korea, China`s claim over Taiwan and the invasion of Ukraine by Japan`s western neighbour Russia stoke fear of war.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida this month said his government would not hike taxes for the next nscal year beginning April 1 but would raise them in stages toward fiscal 2027 to secure funding to boost the defence budget.He said Japan was at a `turning point in history` and that military expansion through cost-cutting and tax hikes was `my answer to the various security challenges that we face`.

Almost 65pc of respondents in Kyodo`s survey opposed raising taxes for military spending, while 87pc said Kishida`s explanation of the need to raise tax was insufficient.

The survey also showed support for Kishida`s administration was unchanged from a month earlier at 33.1pc, the worst since it was launched in October last year.

The government`s five-year tax plan, once unthinl(able in pacifist Japan, would make the country the world`s third-biggest military spender after the United States and China, based on current budgets.

-Reuters