(1888PressRelease)
April 19, 2007 - In Japan the moves for the status of military power and overseas aggression have been more undisguised. This excites a great vigilance from the world.
Recently, the defence agency of Japan officially published the defence budget plan for the fiscal year 2007. The budget includes the fund of ¥ 219 billion needed in the establishment of the missile defence system. It also hastens the security of interceptor missiles. The total fund amounts to 4860 billion, 1.5 per cent greater than the present fiscal year.
The Kyoto news agency of Japan reported that high-ranking politicians assert the elevation of the defence agency into the status of ministry of defence and the bill for this was already presented to the House of Representatives of the Japanese Diet.
The right-wing conservative forces are putting spurs to the concoction of the bills, which make it possible to dispatch the Self-Defence Forces abroad according to their independent judgement and use weapons even beside justifiable defence.
The former prime minister of Japan Nakasone, chairman of the world peace research institute, said that though Japan should maintain the stand of possessing no nuclear weapons and making efforts to strengthen the NPT system, the problem of nuclear weapons should be taken into consideration because there may be a change in the international community.
In the meantime, Nakasone proposed to revise the constitution in the direction that the Self-Defence Forces is written as the self-defence army and the exercise of their collective self-defence right is tolerated.
To be concrete, it means that the peace constitution will be revised and military power corresponding to the economic power be built, and in the final analysis, it will reign over Northeast Asia as the bearer of supremacy—which reveals his ultra-national and right-wing political idea.
As is known, the manoeuvres of the right-wing forces of Japan for the status of military power and overseas expansion has been intensified since the cease of the cold war. The operational sphere of the SDF has been expanded outside the border of Japan and the armed forces of SDF have been reorganized and deployed concentrated in the western area of Japan near the Korean peninsula. Modernization of military equipment of the SDF and turning them into long-distance ones and large-sized ones are stepped up and moves are also made to expand the sphere of overseas operational activity of the SDF.
The problem for the right-wing forces is that the political and military setup system and the code to legalize the overseas operations of the SDF are not brought to perfection. The present self-defence agency, by the law of the state administrative organization, is disqualified from enacting and revising decrees unlike other ministries and the director of defence cannot propose the items of important activities of the SDF and their dispatch abroad to the meeting of the Cabinet. That is, the director of defence is not allowed to turn the SDF into a regular army and exercise at will the right for overseas military operations. If the agency of defence is elevated to the status of the ministry of defence, it can, on its own authority, advance to the Cabinet claims concerning the military matters. In other words its position and qualification will be strengthened greatly.
Along with this, Japan is now hell-bent on nuclear armament. Japan is a country with the second largest defence budget and the fourth in the possession of plutonium (40t) in the world.
In April 2002, Ozawa Itsiro, the then leader of the Liberal Party, blared: Once determined, we can produce thousands of nuclear bombs. Koizmi, in May that year, admitted that Japan has the technical ability to make nuclear weapons.
The establishment of the missile defence system, elevation of the agency of defence to the status of the ministry of defence, modernization of armed equipment, expansion of the operational sphere of the SDF outside the border of Japan, and nuclear armament—these schemes of Japan are attracting the attention of Asian peoples.
The Asian peoples, the Korean people in particular, remember their sufferings of the past century.
Nevertheless, Japan, instead of apology and compensation, has made its appearance as a dangerous war force and is trying to realize its absurd dream of “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere”.
The first target of Japan’s overseas aggression is the Korean peninsula.
The Japanese militarists who are watching for an opportunity to reinvade Korea without forgetting the old days of their colonial rule over it, are scheming to take the road of the conquest of Asia and the rest of the world, starting with the invasion of Korea as in the past.
If Japan does not give up its invariable ambition as a dangerous war force, it will never cleanse its dishonour as a war criminal state.
