Foreign Correspondence

[Amaunet]

Japan may cite China as a threat


China threat: Analysts said a change to such a proactive security policy would touch off nerves in the region, especially among countries which were victims of Japan’s wartime atrocities, including South Korea and China. Military expert Maeda said that if Japan, along with the United States, were to strengthen its military capability, that in itself would increase chances of a conflict with China, which is already suspicious of Japan’s growing security ambitions.

Kyodo news agency said on Wednesday that the new defence outline would specify China as a threat, touching on possible conflicts in the East China Sea or over Taiwan. The potential for problems was graphically illustrated last week when a Chinese submarine intruded into Japanese waters. “The sub incident could be a precursor of a future confrontation pitting China against Japan and the United States,” Maeda said.

-Am

Japan aims for bigger role in defence

* Analysts say Tokyo’s security policy change will increase chances of conflict with China
* Japan eyes constitution overhaul

TOKYO: Japan’s pending review of its defence policy will give its armed forces a greater role in global military cooperation and may cite China as a threat, changes that analysts say could heighten tensions in the region.

Many points of the review, the first since 1995, go beyond Tokyo’s long-held policy of limiting the military’s role in line with its pacifist constitution and may increase concerns among its Asian neighbours. “It signals a switch to possessing both offensive and defensive capabilities from purely a defensive posture,” said Tetsuo Maeda, a professor at Tokyo International University. “It will bring about new tensions and confrontation in East Asia,” added Maeda, an expert on military and security issues.

A draft of the new National Defence Programme Outline, shown to ruling party officials this week, calls for allowing more overseas deployment of its troops on non-combat missions.

Japan has sent around 550 troops to southern Iraq to take part in reconstruction and humanitarian work in its largest and riskiest overseas deployment since World War Two. The outline is expected to be approved by the cabinet later this month or in early December.

The draft also calls for easing restrictions on arms exports to allow Japanese firms to take part in a missile defence project being jointly studied with the United States. Japan has long imposed numerous constraints on its military capabilities, such as prohibiting the Self-Defence Force (SDF) - as the military is known - from fighting overseas and banning arms exports to avoid violating the pacifist constitution.

Article Nine of the postwar constitution renounces the right to go to war and forbids maintenance of a standing military, although it has been interpreted as permitting forces for self-defence.

Shigeru Ishiba, who served as defence minister until late September and was in charge of the policy review, said the new defence outline portends drastic changes to Japan’s security policy likely to take place in the coming years.

“In the next 10 years, I think that the foundations of Japan’s defence policy will change,” he told Reuters in an interview this week.

China threat: Analysts said a change to such a proactive security policy would touch off nerves in the region, especially among countries which were victims of Japan’s wartime atrocities, including South Korea and China. Military expert Maeda said that if Japan, along with the United States, were to strengthen its military capability, that in itself would increase chances of a conflict with China, which is already suspicious of Japan’s growing security ambitions.

Kyodo news agency said on Wednesday that the new defence outline would specify China as a threat, touching on possible conflicts in the East China Sea or over Taiwan. The potential for problems was graphically illustrated last week when a Chinese submarine intruded into Japanese waters. “The sub incident could be a precursor of a future confrontation pitting China against Japan and the United States,” Maeda said.

Constitution overhaul: Japan’s ruling party is eyeing an overhaul of the post-war constitution to allow the military to use force in international missions and let a woman ascend the throne, reports said Wednesday. The ruling Liberal Democratic Party plans to decide on the changes next month and announce a final draft in November 2005, the Yomiuri Shimbun said, citing party sources.

It would mark the first revision of the pacifist 1947 constitution imposed by the United States at the end of World War II, in which Japan renounced war and the right to maintain a military.

A constitutional revision would require a two-thirds majority vote in both houses of parliament and a majority in a public referendum.

A May poll by the Mainichi Shimbun showed 78 percent of lawmakers from both houses of parliament favored revising the constitution. The proposed draft allowing female succession would ease the burden on Crown Princess Masako, 40, a former career woman who has suffered a stress-induced illness since last December amid pressure to produce a male heir.

When she gave birth to daughter Princess Aiko in December 2001, it sparked a debate about overturning the ban on women heading the royal family, which has been in place since the Imperial Household Law of 1889. Before then there had been several Japanese female heads of the royal family. The reports said the revisions would also enshrine in the constitution the red sun “Hinomaru” as the national flag and “Kimigayo” as the national anthem. agencies

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_18-11-2004_pg4_2