TOKYO, Jan. 10 (Xinhua) -- Japanese Defense Minister Tomomi Inada is to start from Thursday a two-day visit to the western Pacific island Guam, where she is slated to inspect the controversial U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system at the U.S. Andersen Air Force Base.
Inada told a press conference on Tuesday that Japan is trying to find ways to strengthen its ballistic missile defense system, as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK)'s nuclear and missile programs "pose a new level of threat."
Though Japan's Defense Ministry "has no concrete plan to introduce THAAD at this stage," "the installation of such new asset could be one of the measures to reinforce our (missile defense) capabilities," she said.
THAAD is a U.S. army anti-ballistic missile system, designed by the U.S. defense company Lockheed Martin, to shoot down missiles in a terminal phase using a hit-to-kill approach. It is considered core assets of the U.S. missile defense system.
A battery of the THAAD system is composed of six mobile launchers, 48 interceptors, an airborne radar and fire control system, totaling an estimated value of 1.3 billion U.S. dollars.
Japan's neighbor, South Korea, announced in July 2016 that it would deploy a battery of the THAAD system, causing strong criticism both at home and its neighboring countries, as deployment of such a system would not help achieve denuclearization in the Korean Peninsula, but would only cause regional security environment to deteriorate by triggering a new wave of arms race.
Whether to deploy the THAAD system has also caused a lot of controversy in Japan in recent years. As the Japanese government mulls beefing up its missile defense system, many analysts here have expressed doubts over the necessity of deploying such an expensive system and are concerned about its adverse effects on Japan's fiscal health and on regional stability.
Japan's defense budget, rising for the fifth straight year since Abe took office in 2012, hit an unprecedented 5.13 trillion yen (around 44 billion U.S. dollars) for fiscal year 2017.
As a measure to improve Japan's missile defense capabilities, Japan's Defense Ministry has included research costs of some 60 million yen (about 520,000 U.S. dollars) for future ballistic missile defense systems, including the THAAD system, in its budget request for fiscal year 2017.
