(VOVworld) - The Japanese government is preparing to consider the fifth consecutive increase to Japan's military budget in the last five years, a testament to the growing threats it is surrounded by.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe approved a 1.5 percent increase in his country's defense budget, increasing military expenditure for 2017 to about 44 billion USD. While the increases push Japan's military spending into the range of one percent of gross domestic product and a dollar amount greater than any year since the end of World War 2, Japan still has a relatively small military budget compared to China, which spends two percent of GDP, and the United States, which spends about three percent of GDP.