China expresses "deep concern" with Japan's new defense guidelines
China knows Japan’s maverick prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi, who loves to irritate China through his actions, adheres to policies that are most in line with those of his handler, Bush. Thus when China expresses "strong dissatisfaction" with the Japanese government they are also expressing "strong dissatisfaction" with the United States government.
-Am
China expresses "deep concern" with Japan's new defense guidelines
www.chinaview.cn 2004-12-10 22:44:18
China responds to Japan's repeated protest concerning Okinotori waters
BEIJING, Dec. 10 (Xinhuanet) -- China on Friday expressed "deep concern" with Japan's overhaul of its defense policy.
"We are deeply concerned with the great changes of Japan's military defense strategy and its possible impact," China's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhang Qiyue said.
The Japanese government on Friday approved a new edition of the National Defense Program Outline which features more proactive use of force and deeper involvement of the self-defense-oriented troops in international affairs.
The new outline also said Japan will continue to watch China's moves in military modernization and marine activities.
When asked to make a comment, Zhang said due to historic reasons, Japan's military and security moves are sensitive issues.
She said China hopes the Japanese side will take its Asian neighbors' concern into full consideration and keep following the path of peace and development.
She also urged Japan to take prudent actions in military and security issues to maintain the peace and development of the region.
Meanwhile, Zhang expressed China's "strong dissatisfaction" to the Japanese government, which described China as a potential threat in its official document. "This is totally groundless and extremely irresponsible," she said.
She said China hopes Japan would do more things that could help promote mutual trust and maintain healthy and stable development of the bilateral ties.
The outline, dating back to 1976, stipulates Japan's basic defense policies. It was revised in 1995 following the end of the Cold War. Enditem
Japan's New Military Focus: China and North Korea Threats By JAMES BROOKE
Published: December 11, 2004
OKYO, Dec. 10 - Japan adopted plans Friday to shift its military focus away from the cold-war threat of invasion from the Soviet Union to guarding against missiles from North Korea and Chinese incursions around its southernmost islands.
The new policy cuts tanks and artillery pieces by one-third, to about 600 of each, but greatly increases investment in missiles and forms a squadron of midair refueling planes to allow existing aircraft to attack North Korean missile sites and return home safely to Japan.
"Russia is a weak, almost marginalized player in the strategic military sense, while China has continued to develop its military power and North Korea has become a major focus," Lance Gatling, an American aerospace consultant here, said in an interview.
In another break with Japan's pacifist tradition, the plan calls for selectively ending a longstanding ban on arms exports. To develop a missile defense system with Washington, Japan would have to export components to the United States.
Japan's Constitution largely limits the military to self-defense. But in recent years Japan has broadened that interpretation, sending troops overseas for peacekeeping missions and, most recently, sending about 550 soldiers to Iraq. Japan's neighbors, particularly China and North Korea - both occupied by Japan in the last century - are sensitive to shifts in Tokyo's military spending.
"Official Japanese documents openly play up the so-called 'China threat,' which is completely baseless and irresponsible," Zhang Qiyue, China's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, said in a statement posted Friday on the ministry's Web site shortly after the military guidelines were announced here. "China expresses strong dissatisfaction with this, and hopes Japan will do more to improve mutual trust and the healthy and stable development of bilateral ties."
Japan's spending plan, the result of a once-in-a-decade review, represents an effort to do better with less.
In what a Defense Agency spokesman called the first budget reduction in memory, five-year spending is to drop to $233 billion, 3.7 percent below the average of the last five years. Ground troops will be cut by 5,000, or 3 percent; combat aircraft will be reduced by 70 airplanes, or 12 percent; and destroyers will be cut by 7, or 13 percent. The cuts came after battles with Finance Ministry officials, who demanded more social spending for Japan's aging population.
Japan is able to restrict its military spending to about 1 percent of its gross domestic product because of its security alliance with the United States. The new guidelines reaffirmed this alliance, calling it indispensable.
"Given its geostrategic vulnerabilities, energy dependence and declining birthrate, Japan is hardly in a position to embark on military adventurism or expansionism in East Asia," Alan Dupont, an Australian military analyst, wrote this week in The Straits Times of Singapore. "Fifty years ago, there was one Japanese for every six Chinese; by 2050, the ratio will be one to 16."
China, he wrote, is spending 4.1 percent of its gross domestic product on the military, compared with 3.3 percent for the United States and 2.8 percent for South Korea.
To deal with new threats, Japan is doubling its rapid-reaction force to 15,000, forming new infantry units that will include paratroopers and helicopter-borne soldiers. According to the news agency Jiji Press, these units would be posted at 90 sites on the Sea of Japan coastline to repel possible infiltration by North Korea.
In the south, Japan is raising the detachment of troops stationed in Okinawa to full brigade status, about 2,500 soldiers.
Last month, the Maritime Self-Defense Forces went on alert when a nuclear-powered Chinese Navy submarine passed through Japanese territorial waters near Taiwan.
On Friday, Japan protested to China after a Chinese research vessel was found mapping the seabed in what Japan considers its exclusive economic zone, near Okinotori Island, 1,000 miles south of Tokyo.
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