Higher defense spending won’t unsettle markets, government adviser says

Any expansion of Japan’s defense spending will likely be spread over many years and shouldn’t become a source of significant market anxiety in any single year, according to a member of a panel that advises Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi. He said at that pace, it shouldn’t make the market “feel anxiety.” Aida said Takaichi’s ¥370 trillion ($2.3 trillion) public-private investment plan for strategic sectors, another of her signature policies, is designed to run through 2040, suggesting that higher defense spending would likely follow a similarly long-term framework.