The World - News from May 13, 1988

U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense William Howard Taft IV said Japan should significantly boost its military forces to increase its share of the U.S. defense burden in East Asia. “There is no reason, given Japan’s strategic requirements and its powerful national economy, for Japan to aim only at meeting its minimum security requirements,” Taft told reporters in Tokyo after meeting with Japan’s foreign minister, Sosuke Uno, and Defense Agency officials. Taft’s Tokyo visit completed a weeklong tour in which he also discussed sharing defense costs with European allies and South Korea.