AMERICAN FUTURE

As luck would have it, only a few days after I posted on this subject, the Weekly Standard published an article that includes some rather surprising information.

It’s hard to believe, but Japan is currently prohibited from coming to the defense of U.S. naval forces or trying to intercept a missile headed toward U.S. territory:

According to a 1981 ruling of the Cabinet Legislation Bureau (CLB), a group of scholars who advise the prime minister on the constitutionality of laws and policy in a Supreme Court-like fashion, for Japan to assist U.S. forces would be an act of “collective self-defense.” The CLB argues that while Tokyo possesses the inherent right to collective self-defense as a sovereign state, Article 9 of the postwar “Peace Constitution” prohibits the country from exercising it.

The consequences of this interpretation, argues the author, “have always bordered on the absurd.” For instance, at the time of the ruling, it meant that “Japan’s Self-Defense Forces (SDF) would have to watch idly by while the U.S. Navy fought a Soviet invasion, so long as the Russians were smart enough to engage only American ships.”

More to the point, the prohibition now implies that

if North Korea were to launch a missile over Japanese territory toward Guam, it is not clear that Tokyo could intercept the warhead. If the missile were targeted at the American homeland, and thus on a flight path that avoided Japan’s airspace, almost any response would be unconstitutional. If the SDF did respond, it would be doing in violation of the constitution . . . “

Fortunately, however, Japan’s new Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, appears poised to lead Japan past the prohibition on collective self-defense as part of an effort to conduct joint inspections of suspected North Korean shipments of narcotics and proliferated materials. Last week, his Minister of State for Defense, Fumio Kyuma, announced before the Japanese Diet that he could not clearly distinguish between the notions of “individual self-defense” and “collective self-defense” when Japan is conducting operations with the United States.

Kyuma’s statement has been interpreted to mean that the Maritime Self-Defense Forces will create an “operational exception” to the ban on collective self-defense. The consequences of this shift are “tremendous”—the prohibition on collective self-defense is one of the final barriers that have prevented Tokyo from taking its rightful place as a “normal country” that carries a full share of responsibility for security in Asia and the world.

The article’s author, Christopher Griffin, avers that “Tokyo needs to expand upon this operational exception to the ban on collective self-defense to clarify that as its ballistic missile defense capabilities come online, Japan will use them to target any hostile missile departing North Korea—be it bound for Japanese territory, beyond Japan to U.S. possessions in the Pacific, or to the American mainland” and concludes that it’s now up to Washington and Tokyo “to see that this breakthrough is used as the basis for further efforts to contain North Korea’s proliferation and missile development activities.”

Should it choose to do so, Japan could easily and quickly become a major nuclear power. Three years ago, an article in Foreign Affairsⁱ stated that Japan then possessed a 38,000 kilogram stockpile of plutonium and that, by 2020, the stockpile will have grown to 145,000 kilograms—enough to produce almost 30,000 nuclear warheads. Needless to say, should Japan decide that the threat environment warranted its joining the nuclear club, the consequences would be incalculable. Japan, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea and, undoubtedly, South Korea would all be armed with the ultimate in weapons of mass destruction. Asia would resemble pre-World War I: a powder keg. This time, the powder would be radioactive.

If the Japanese are to be dissuaded from transforming their country from a potential to an actual nuclear power, it is essential that the North Korean nuclear weapons program be eliminated, preferably through diplomatic means, but, if necessary, by force. Since 1998, when Pakistan held its first nuclear test, Tokyo has lived in a neigborhood inhabited by three nuclear states. But Tokyo has not perceived Pakistan, India and China as imminent existential threats. A nuclear North Korea under the control of an unpredictable Stalinist regime and harboring long-standing historical grudges against Japan is another matter entirely. Without question, Kim Jong Il unnerves the Japanese. Depending on Kim’s future actions and the international community’s reaction to them, it is my judgment that Tokyo could decide that it has no choice but to quickly develop a nuclear arsenal overwhelmingly larger than anything of which Pyongyang is capable.

Judged by the recent public statements of key government officials, the current state of the nuclear issue in Japan is that it should be a subject of debate and discussion, but there is no current intention of reversing its anti-nuclear policy of the last sixty years. However, it seems clear that, should doubts arise regarding the American commitment to provide Japan with a nuclear umbrella to deter Pyongyang, pressure would rapidly mount for Japan to develop its own nuclear deterrent.

As will now be documented, North Korea’s recent nuclear test (and the prospect of further ones) has revived and intensified, not initiated, a debate within Japan over joining the nuclear club and, more generally, over strenghtening the country’s military forces.

THE 1998 NORTH KOREAN MISSILE TEST

On August 31, 1998, North Korea test fired its new, two-stage Taepodong-1 missile. The first stage fell into the sea before reaching Japan, and the second flew over Japan, landing in the Pacific Ocean. The Chief Cabinet Secretary, Hiromu Nonaka, called the test deplorable and said the firing was an “extremely dangerous act.”ⁱⁱ Sadaaki Numata, a spokeman for the Foreign Ministry, said “We are seriously concerned about this because the deployment of missiles by North Korea does affect Japanese security and it also affects peace and stability in Northeast Asia. It is also of serious global concern, in terms of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.”ⁱⁱⁱ

Ten days later, Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi said Japan might launch its own reconnaissance satellite to improve the country’s military capacity and make it easier to monitor North Korean missile deployments.^iv Hiromu Nonaka, the chief Government spokeman, said Japanese officials had been deeply upset at feeling entirely reliant on other countries [meaning the U.S.] for information about a missile that had flown over its own territory.ⁱⁱⁱ

Japan’s H-2 rocket, intended to put satellites in orbit, could be converted into an ICBM. A 1998 poll by Gallup Japan found that 89 percent of the public believed that Japan did not need to build nuclear weapons. It is not clear whether the poll was conducted before or after the North Korean missile test.

THE 2002 NORTH KOREAN ABROGATION OF THE AGREED FRAMEWORK^v

In October 2002, North Korea confirmed U.S. intelligence reports that it had a clandestine enriched uranium weapons program in violation of the Agreed Framework and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Two months later, Pyongyang lifted the freeze on its plutonium-based weapons program and expelled IAEA inspectors who had been monitoring the freeze under the Agreed Framework.

The Japanese reacted sharply to the North Korean announcements. In February 2003, Japan’s defense minister, Shigeru Ishiba, warned North Korea that Japan could launch a pre-emptive strike to defend itself. According to the previously cited Foreign Affairs article, he repeated the warning on September 15, noting that “the Japanese constitution permits my position. Attacking North Korea after a missile attack on Japan is too late.” Other prominent members of Japan’s government and media followed suit, arguing that their country should prepare to defend itself—including, possibly, by developing nuclear weapons.

Portions of the Foreign Affairs article—published in October 2003—are worth quoting at length:

Not long ago, such comments [as Ishiba’s] would have been unthinkable outside the extreme right wing of Japan’s political discourse. Today, however, this kind of language is becoming more and more common . . . rising nationalism has taken hold in one of America’s closest allies . . . With North Korea growing ever more bellicose, Japan’s nuclear genie may have escaped its bottle for good.

[ . . . ] Open calls for Japan to acquire nuclear weapons—a subject that was once forbidden—provide further evidence of a new nationalism. Various members of Prime Minister Koizumi’s cabinet have joined the deense minister in urging the country to protect itself more vigorously. In mid-2002 . . . Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda argued publicly that the constitution did not prevent Japan from acquiring nuclear weapons, and his comments were quickly echoed by Tokyo’s governor, Shintaro Ishihara—perhaps Japan’s most well-known nationalist.

[ . . . ] Article 9’s^vi prohibitions have started to erode . . . Soon after his election, Koizumi convened the Japanese legislature’s Research Commission on the Constitution to reconsider the rules on the use of force, and public opinion has started to shift. A plurality of Japanese now [2003] favor turning the country’s SDF into a full-fledged army.

[ . . . ] As a result of such shifts, various nationalist positions once considered radical are no longer thought outlandish. In the last weeks of 2002, Shingo Nishimura, a right-wing member of the reuling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) declared “Kim Jong Il . . . is Hitler and the Japanese government is behaving like Chamberlain. A The Times of London reported on February 22, “a few months [earlier], Nishimura was regarded as an isolated crank,” and “the merest allusion to a nuclear Japan was taboo. But among politicians, academics, and bureaucrats, the possibility is now being discreetly and cautiously discussed.”

THE 2006 NORTH KOREAN MISSILE TESTS

On July 4, North Korea test-fired at least six missiles over the Sea Of Japan, including an ICBM that apparently failed or was aborted soon after it was launched.

The Japanese government reacted quickly, saying that it was considering imposing economic sanctions, including cutting off a significant source of cash for North Korea by cracking down on money transfers from Japan. It also banned the North Korean Mangyongbong-92 ferry—the only regular link between Japan and North Korea and a conduit for transferring cash and supplies—from entering its ports for six months.^vii

Unidentified Japanese analysts said that the rising threat from North Korea was likely to help the country’s political leaders persuade the public of the need to strengthen military ties with the U.S., transform Japan’s SDF into a full-fledged military, and eventually revise Japan’s pacifist Constitution.

Within a week after the missile tests, Japanese officials had “openly begun talking about whether Japan should acquire the military capacity to undertake pre-emptive strikes.” Shinzo Abe, the chief cabinet secretary who would soon become prime minister, said “If we accept that there is no other option to prevent a missile attack, there is an argument that attacking the missile bases would be within the legal rights of self-defense.” A day earlier, the head of the defense agency, Fukushiro Nukaga, said Japan should consider pre-emptive strikes “if an enemy country definitely has a way of attacking Japan and has its finger on the trigger.”^viii

ABE BECOMES JAPAN’S PRIME MINISTER

On September 27—only a week before North Korea announced its intention to conduct a nuclear test—Shinzo Abe replaced Junichiro Koizumi as Japan’s Prime Minister. At a press conference held immediately after his appointment, Abe told reporters that his goals included revising the Constitution to permit a full-fledged military^ix, closer military cooperation with the U.S., and securing a permanent seat for Japan on the UN Security Council.

Among his cabinet selections was Yuriko Koike, who was appointed to the new job of national security adviser. Ms. Koike has been a vocal supporter of the economic sanctions on North Korea stemming from its refusal to provide information on the fate of Japanese citizens kidnapped twenty years ago.

THE 2006 NORTH KOREAN NUCLEAR TEST

Prime Minister Abe reacted to North Korea’s planned nuclear test “in stern terms rarely heard in the cautious language of Japanese diplomacy.”^x He said that “Japan and the world absolutely will not tolerate a nuclear test. The international community would respond harshly.”

Soon after issuing this statement, Abe visited China. At a press conference held after his return to Japan, he said that Japan and China had “agreed that a nuclear weapon test by North Korea cannot be tolerated and we confirmed that we shall cooperate closely with the countries concerned to resolve the North Korean nuclear issue, including the early resumption of the Six-Party Talks.”^xi

At another press conference—this one held after reports that North Korea had carried out its threat to test a nuclear weapon, Abe had these words:^xii

When we consider the nuclear weapons development of North Korea together with the ballistic missiles which North Korea is extending their range, it constitutes a grave threat to the international community as a whole, beyond the Northeast Asian region. The proliferation of nuclear weapons and manufacturing technology will impose an additional threat not just to Northeast Asian countries but also to the safety of the international community as a whole. The North Korean nuclear test is a grave challenge to the nuclear non-proliferation regime, an issue the international community as a whole needs to address seriously. The Government of Japan shall immediately embark on consideration of harsh measures and shall also consult with our ally, the United States, and also the countries I am visiting this time, the ROK and China, on the measures to address the situation. I have also instructed the Government of Japan to request the UN Security Council to immediately launch consultations with a view to taking firm action on North Korea’s nuclear test issue. Also, from the viewpoint of security, in order to do our best to ensure the safety of our country and people, Japan shall maintain close coordination with the US to further improve the credibility of the deterrence based on the Japan-US alliance and also shall further promote the Japan-US defense cooperation including the missile defense program.

The day after the nuclear test, the New York Times averred that it could “weaken public support for the pacifism Japan adopted after World War II and prompt it to seek a growing regional security role.” The Times then asked “could the crisis be big enough to force Japan to break what might be its ultimate postwar taboo and go nuclear?” It’s answer was that “for now,” domestic opposition runs “too deep” for Japan to reverse its renunciation of nuclear weapons. The most likely result of the crisis is to improve Abe’s chances of revising the Constitution.

The Times noted, however, that the effects on Japanese public opinion might take time to appear:

When North Korea test-fired a multistage Taepodong missile over Japan in 1998, Japan’s initial reaction was muted, but public opinion ended up moving sharply in favor of building a stronger defense. That allowed Japan to begin adding weapons that once would have been unthinkable, including Japan’s first spy satellite, a troop transport ship now under construction that experts say could serve as a small aircraft carrier, and aerial tankers that would allow Japanese fighter jets to refuel in midair to reach North Korea and other countries.

On October 14, Kenzo Oshima, Japan’s Permanent Representative at the UN, issued a statement at a meeting of the Security Council.^xiii He called the North Korean action a “clear and present” danger, adding that “the combination of ballistic missile capability and now, the claim of nuclear capability, in the hands of a regime with a known and proven record of reckless and irresponsible acts and behavior, including as a proliferator, creates a situation that is nothing less than a grave threat to peace and security.”

Oshima also listed the unilateral actions taken by Japan on October 11: (1) Denial of permission to enter Japanese ports to all North Korean vessels, (2) Denial of import of all items from North Korea, and (3) Denial in principle of entry by North Korean nationals into Japanese territory.

That same day, Reuters reported that Japan was considering additional unilateral steps, including (1) a ban on exports of luxury goods, (2) tightening of a freeze on remittances and the transfer of funds from Japan suspected of links to North Korea’s WMD and missile programs, and (3) restrictions on trade in related weapons-related goods through third countries.^xiv

THE CURRENT JAPANESE NUCLEAR DEBATE

After the passage of Resolution 1718, reports began to surface regarding the reexamination of Japan’s nuclear weapons ban. Shoichi Nakagawa, chairman of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s policy research council, said he believed Japan would adhere to its policy of not arming itself with nuclear weapons but added that debate over whether to go nuclear was necessary.^xv During a television interview, he said

We need to find a way to prevent Japan from coming under attack . . . There is an argument that nuclear weapons are one such option. I want to make clear that I am not the one saying this, and Japan will stick to its nonnuclear principples, but we need to have active discussions.

Nakagawa also said the Constitution does not prohibit the possession of nuclear arms, adding that such weapons might reduce or remove the risk of being attacked.

Two days after Nakagawa’s interview, Foreign Minister Taro Aso said there was nothing wrong with discussing whether Japan should possess nuclear weapons, but stressed that Tokyo has no intentions now of going nuclear.^xvi He told a parliamentary panel on foreign affairs that

When a country next to us comes to have [nuclear weapons], we can’t consider, we can’t talk, we can’t do anything, and we can’t exchange opinions. That’s one way of thinking . . . I believe it is important to have various discussions on it [possessing nuclear weapons] as one more way of thinking . . . The reality is that it is only Japan that has not discussed possessing nuclear weapons, and all other countries have been discussing it.

Nakagawa’s and Aso’s remarks represented the first time that “such prominent politicians have spoken so prominently about the need to open the nuclear debate.”^xvii As recently as 1999, a deputy defense minister, Shingo Nishimura, was forced to resign after he said in a magazine interview that Japan should consider nuclear weapons.

Later, however, during a joint news conference with Secretary of State Rice, Aso said “The Japanese government has absolutely no intentions now of preparing to possess nuclear weapons . . . There is no need to have nuclear weapons as the Japan-U.S. security framework will be activated for the defense of Japan, and Secretary Rice has just confirmed that.” At the news conference, Rice said “The United States has the will and the capability to meet the full range—and I underscore full range—of its deterrent and security commitments to Japan.”^xviii

Prime Minister Abe gave assurances that Japan would stick to its self-imposed “three non-nuclear principles” of not possessing, producing and bringing in nuclear weapons. Asked by reporters if his cabinet was split on the issue, he said “The cabinet is not split. This talk is already finished.”

1. Eugene A. Matthews, “Japan’s New Nationalism”, November/December 2003.↩
2. New York Times, September 1, 1998.↩
3. Ibid.↩
4. New York Times, September 11, 1998.↩
5. The Agreed Framework was signed on October 21, 1994. It specified the actions both countries would take to resolve the North Korean nuclear issue. Under the terms of the agreement, a US-led international consortium promised to help North Korea replace its graphite-moderated reactors with two 1,000MW light water reactors. The international consortium compensated North Korea for the freeze on its graphite-moderated reactors by supplying 500,000 tons of heavy-fuel oil annually until the new reactors came online. Both countries promised to strive towards establishing a nuclear-weapons-free-zone on the Korean Peninsula. North Korea said it would remain a member of the NPT and allow the IAEA to implement the safeguards agreement and monitor the freeze on its nuclear facilities. The U.S. allowed North Korea to retain possession of 8,000 spent fuel rods instead of sending them to a third country for storage, a condition on which the United States had earlier insisted.↩
6. Article 9 of Japan’s American-drafted constitution essentially commits Japan to pacifism and ensures its staunch anti-nuclear stance.↩
7. New York Times, July 6, 2006.↩
8. New York Times, July 11, 2006.↩
9. Abe’s party’s proposed changes in Article 9 of the Constitution include removing the title “self defence” from the name of Japan’s armed forces and giving them greater flexibility in how they can respond to an attack on the country.↩
10. New York Times, October 4, 2006.↩
11. Press Conference by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe Following His Visit to China, October 8, 2006.↩
12. Press Conference by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe Following His Visit to the Republic of Korea, October 9, 2006.↩
13. Statement by H.E. Mr. Kenzo Oshima, Permanent Representative of Japan At the Meeting of the Security Council, October 14, 2006.↩
14. Reuters, October 14, 2006.↩
15. Reuters, October 16, 2006.↩
16. Reuters, October 18, 2006.↩
17. New York Times, October 19, 2006.↩
18. Associated Press, October 18, 2006.↩

The Japan Times reports that the Japanese government is looking at introducing another resolution to the UN Security Council that features a complete ban on imports of North Korean products if Pyongyang detonates another nuclear device or launches missiles. [emphasis added]

According to the article, Japan would seek a resolution that would not limit the range of sanctions based on the UN Charter’s Chapter 7 that stipulates “action with respect to threats to peace, breaches of the peace and acts of aggression,” the sources said. Depending on the actions North Korea may take, the new resolution would leave room for invoking Article 42 of the chapter that paves the way for the authorization of military action by the Security Council.

The U.S. obtained unanimity for the UN Security Council resolution in July that condemned North Korean missile launches by dropping Chapter VII language to which China and Russia objected. Earlier today, the U.S. circulated a revised draft resolution on North Korea to the Security Council today and pressed for a vote by tomorrow. While softened from the original, the revised resolution still calls for international inspections of cargo going into and out of North Korea to block transport of weapons-related material and cites the need for drafting the resolution under Chapter VII.

Per the New York Times, Russia and China immediately signaled their opposition to the measure and said they needed more time. In a reference to the danger he thought the American position posed, Russian ambassador Vitaly Churkin said “As we know in this problem and in this part of the world, some strong statements made by others in the Security Council have hurt the entire thing and have aggravated matters so we do not want to repeat this on the level of the Security Council.” The Chinese ambassador, Wang Guangya, said the North Korean test of a nuclear device was an “irresponsible action” which had to be “firmly opposed and condemned,” but added that “More important, it should be helpful for leading to a solution of this issue by peaceful means. It should also create conditions for the parties to once again engage in negotiations to settle this issue.”

Like an old-fashioned record stuck in a groove, the Security Council’s song is “cross the line, negotiate . . . cross the line, negotiate . . . cross the line, negotiate . . .” The most attentive listeners to this song of appeasement are North Korea and Iran.

The U.S. doesn’t think this is groovy. A spokesman for Ambassador Bolton pointed out that the Russians and Chinese were already blocking Security Council action on Zimbabwe, Sudan, Iran and Myanmar and said “It’s all right to keep talking if you are really going to get action, but not if it’s just delay and delay and delay.”

Asked if the United States would settle for a less than unanimous vote, Bolton said, “We would always like the highest number of votes in the Security Council and we have not given up on our efforts to achieve that, but we have also said that it’s important that we send a very clear signal. We’re still trying to persuade China of the overwhelming sentiment of the other members of the Council to support these provisions.”

As for the latest draft resolution,

• It still includes steps calling for an embargo on permitting movement of all material related to North Korea’s nuclear, ballistic missile and unconventional-weapons programs, a ban on travel by North Koran officials and a call on Pyongyang to return to the six-party talks involving South and North Korea, China, Japan, Russia and the United States. North Korea left the talks 13 months ago.


• It drops Japanese amendments prohibiting North Korean ships from entering any port and North Korean aircraft from taking off or landing in any country. However, Japan is imposing its own new sanctions on North Korea, including a limit on imports and a ban on North Korean ships in Japanese waters.


• Regarding international inspections, Bolton said the U.S. already had the power to inspect cargoes under the American-led Proliferation Security Initiative, a group of more than 70 countries that have pledged to seize illicit weapons as they move across oceans or are transported by air. But he said the U.S. wanted language reinforcing it in the resolution so that it would be binding on all member states of the UN.


• Regarding illegal financial transactions by North Korea, Bolton said the new resolution was being wrongly interpreted as having dropped earlier demands for sanctions. He said a remaining passage in the section calling for a freeze of North Korean assets included mention of “other illicit means,” and he said that was a reference to counterfeiting and drug trafficking activities engaged in by Pyongyang to raise money.

The Washington Post reports Bolton as saying “”There are still differences on some important aspects of the resolution. We’re going to continue to work on it, but we’re not going to work on it at the cost of losing sending a swift and strong response.”

In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao indicated that China is not embracing a travel ban and financial sanctions. He said the UN should make North Korea understand it had made a mistake by apparently testing a nuclear weapon, but that “punishment should not be the purpose” of the UN response, the AP reported. Instead, the aim should be to bring North Korea back to the six-party talks.

The text of the revised draft resolution is available here.

With my emphases, here’s an excellent background article, written prior to December 2004, from GlobalSecurity.org :

Although possession of nuclear weapons is not forbidden in the constitution, Japan, as the only nation to experience the devastation of atomic attack, early expressed its abhorrence of nuclear arms and determined never to acquire them. The Basic Atomic Energy Law of 1956 limits research, development, and utilization of nuclear power to peaceful uses, and, beginning in 1956, national policy has embodied “three non-nuclear principles”—forbidding the nation to possess or manufacture nuclear weapons or to allow them to be introduced into the nation. Prime Minister Eisaku Sato made this pledge – known as the Three Non-Nuclear Principles – on February 5, 1968. The notion was formalized by the Japanese Diet on November 24, 1971. In 1976 Japan ratified the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (adopted by the United Nations Security Council in 1968) and reiterated its intention never to “develop, use, or allow the transportation of nuclear weapons through its territory.” However, if Japan believed that “extraordinary events” had jeopardised its “supreme interests”, under Article X of the Treaty it could withdraw from the NPT. Such “extraordinary events” could include the acquisition of nuclear weapons by North Korea. Japan could then legally use its plutonium to build nuclear weapons.

During the Sato cabinet in the 1960’s, it is reported that Japan secretly studied the development of nuclear weapons. Prime Minister Eisaku Sato secured nuclear protection from the United States in 1965 by exagerating Tokyo’s readiness to develop nuclear weapons. In a 29 December 1964 meeting, Sato told US Ambassador to Japan Edwin Reischauer that Japan might develop nuclear weapons. This followed China’s first successful atom-bomb test in October 1964.

In 1970 US President Richard Nixon agreed to return Okinawa to Japan by 1972. At that time, Nixon pledged to recognize the “particular sentiment of the Japanese people against nuclear weapons” but reserved the right to consult with Tokyo over their reintroduction in an emergency. The technical agreement was signed on June 17, 1971, the treaty confirmed by the Senate in November, and reversion accomplished on May 15, 1972.

Eisaku Sato, former prime minister of Japan, received the 1974 Nobel Peace Prize mainly in recognition of his opposition to any plans for a Japanese nuclear weapons program and his crucial role in ensuring Japan’s signature to the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

On 17 June 1974, Japanese Prime Minister Tsutomu Hata told reporters that “it’s certainly the case that Japan has the capability to possess nuclear weapons but has not made them.” This remark aroused widespread concern in the international media at that time.

Japan’s nuclear power program based on reprocessed plutonium has aroused widespread suspicion that Japan is secretly planning to develop nuclear weapons. Japan’s nuclear technology and ambiguous nuclear inclinations have provided a considerable nuclear potential, becoming a “paranuclear state.” Japan would not have material or technological difficulties in making nuclear weapons. Japan has the raw materials, technology, and capital for developing nuclear weapons. Japan could possibly produce functional nuclear weapons in as little as a year’s time. On the strength of its nuclear industry, and its stockpile of weapons-useable plutonium, Japan in some respects considers itself, and is treated by others as a virtual nuclear weapons state.

Proponents of Japan’s plutonium program have raised suspicions by making false and misleading statements concerning the weapons potential of reactor-grade plutonium. In 1993 Ryukichi Imai, former Japanese ambassador for non-proliferation, wrote that the reactor-grade plutonium being shipped from France to Japan “...is of a nature quite different from what goes into the making of weapons….Whatever the details of this plutonium, it is quite unfit to make a bomb.” Hiroyoshi Kurihara, former executive director of Power Reactor & Nuclear Fuel Development Corporation (PNC—Japan’s primary company for developing plutonium-fueled reactors) stated that “many Japanese experts express the opinion that reactor-grade plutonium could not be used for workable nuclear weapons.”

With the Non-Proliferation Treaty being extended indefinitely in 1995 and a heightened awareness of the risks of proliferation, it became increasingly important for the the Power Reactor & Nuclear Fuel Development Corporation (PNC) to gain a better understanding of domestic and international factors involved in these issues and to consider specific measures to promote non-proliferation.

In 1995 the Japanese government conducted an internal study on nuclear weapons options. This analysis reaffirmed previous studies, concluding that developing nuclear weapons would damage Japan’s national security and regional security. Initiated in the wake of the 1994 nuclear crisis on the Korean Peninsula, the Defense Agency compiled a 31-page secret report during the administration of socialist prime minister, Tomiichi Murayama, whose party was strongly opposed to even maintaining armed forces before coming to power in 1994. “The discussion in favor of owning nuclear weapons lacks sufficient study into the negative impact, while the idea that not possessing nuclear weapons is detrimental is not sufficiently backed by military theory,” the report said. The fact of the existence of the report was disclosed by the Asahi Shimbun on 20 February 2003. The outlines of the study were confirmed by Japanese Defense Agency spokesman Manabu Shimamoto, who stated that Japan had rejected a similar plan to starting a nuclear weapons program in a 1967-1970 study.

In 1998 the restructuring of nuclear R&D in Japan led to the dissolution of the Power Reactor & Nuclear Fuel Development Corporation (PNC) and its replacement by the new Japan Nuclear Fuel Cycle Development Institute (JNC). All responsibilities and commitments related to non-proliferation performed by PNC were taken over by JNC.

In October 1999, Shingo Nishimura, parliamentary vice defense minister and well-known hawk, resigned after stirring up trouble by suggesting Japan arm itself with nuclear weapons. Nishimura had scared a conservative governing leadership that actually agreed with much of what he was saying about nuclear weapons and military policy. Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi categorically denied that Japan was changing its policy against developing its own nuclear deterrent.

On 06 April 2002 Liberal Party president Ichiro Ozawa created a furor claiming that Japan – to deter Chinese threats – could produce “thousands of nuclear warheads” from plutonium extracted from the spent fuel of its more than 50 commercial nuclear reactors. Ozawa said that “if [China] gets too inflated, Japanese people will get hysterical. It would be so easy for us to produce nuclear warheads—we have plutonium at nuclear power plants in Japan, enough to make several thousand such warheads….[I]f we get serious, we will never be beaten in terms of military power.”

On 31 May 2002, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda became the most senior Tokyo official to publicly discuss Japan’s acquisition of nuclear weapons. Fukuda said Japan’s peace constitution did not preclude nuclear weapons, and that the times have “changed to the point that even revising the constitution is being talked about.” He suggested that “depending upon the world situation, circumstances and public opinion could require Japan to possess nuclear weapons.”

According to an article printed in the Asahi Shimbun newspaper on 17 March 2003, US Vice President Richard B. Cheney apparently stated that North Korea’s development of nuclear weapons and missiles may trigger an arms race in East Asia, and that “Japan may be forced to consider whether or not they want to readdress the nuclear issues.”

Japan is rethinking its defense policy. Prime Minister Koizumi is leading efforts to expand Japan’s defense role. Japan’s self-defense force won Diet approval recently of purchasing long-range strike aircraft, including four 767 tankers; power projection, including the formation of an air brigade; and missile defense, including software, hardware and AEGIS class cruisers.

Japan’s perception of the North Korean threat is growing. North Korea shot a No Dong missile over Japanese territory in 1994. They shot a Taepo-dong missile over Japan in 1998. In December Japanese Coast Guard vessels clashed with North Korean spy boats.

There is a nuclear debate beginning in Japan. In April 2003, opposition leader Ichiro Ozawa openly discussed the nuclear option. In May, Chief Cabinet Secretary Fukuda generally hinted at revising defense doctrine. And last month, Defense Minister Ishiba stated Japan might conventionally strike North Korea first.

Japan’s nuclear arsenal would quickly outpace China’s. France’s nuclear submarine costs just $13 billion and would be well within Japan’s means. And Japan nuclear armament would encourage other Asian nations to also arm, even Taiwan.

In October 2004 a panel of academics, business leaders, and former government officials called for Japan to consider acquiring the ability to launch pre-emptive military strikes. That would move the country away from its purely defensive security policy. The recommendations from the panel will strongly influence the government’s official defense review, expected to be issued in December 2004. It is only the third such review since Japan’s defeat in World War Two. By far the most controversial proposal recommends that Japan obtain a first-strike capability, allowing it to hit enemy missile bases to prevent an attack. That recommendation, if adopted, would be certain to anger Asian neighbors, especially China and North Korea. The panel, however, came out against Japan having nuclear weapons, saying it must not pose a threat to neighboring countries.

Links

The Council on Security and Defense Capabilities Report: Japan’s Visions for Future Security and Defense Capabilities, October 2004.

“Without the UN safety net, even Japan may go nuclear,” The Guardian, April 28, 2003.

“Japan and the Bomb: a cause for concern?,” Asia-Pacific Magazine, June 1996.

The New York Daily News’ Michael Goodwin succinctly summarizes the state of the world:

Last week’s headlines prove the point: North Korea fires missiles, Iran talks of nukes again, Iraq carnage continues, Israel invades Gaza, England observes one-year anniversary of subway bombing. And, oh, yes, the feds stop a plot to blow up tunnels under the Hudson River.

World War III has begun.

[ . . . ] Even worse than the problems is the fact that our political system is failing us. Democratic Party leaders want to pretend we can declare peace and everything will be fine, while President Bush is out of ideas. Witness Bush now counseling patience and diplomacy on North Korea. This from a man who scorned both for five years.

I don’t know whether WWIII has begun, but for some time I’ve felt that there’s a fever in the air. The 1990s were like Edwardian England: on the surface, it seemed like the best of times, but, below the surface, the pot was heating up and reached the boiling point in 1914.

In the New York Times, William J. Broad avers that “Failure Can Be Successful”:

June 11, 1957, the Atlas, America’s first Intercontinental Ballistic Missile, took its inaugural flight from Cape Canaveral in Florida. It lasted 24 seconds . . . The rocket’s designers, though disappointed, learned a lot. It was clear that, despite the pummeling the Atlas took as it careered out of control, the rocket had remained intact. That proved its structural integrity, ending a major debate over the design’s soundness.

Moving the clock ahead by almost 50 years, Broad says that “Perhaps everyone can learn from failure, even the North Koreans.” He then quotes Harold M. Agnew, a former director of the Los Alamos weapons laboratory, as saying “It would take five or six tests of their final design before they’d be confident it could go someplace” and Jonathan McDowell, a Harvard astronomer who tracks global rocket launchings. According to McDowell, even if failures cut short a vehicle’s debut the flight can “give you an incredible amount of information about such things as how well your engines are working and what the aerodynamic stability of the vehicle is.”

Meanwhile, The Times’ Michael Sheridan reports that covert action program against nuclear and missile traffic to North Korea and Iran is to be intensified after last week’s missile tests by the North Korean regime. Intelligence agencies, navies and air forces from at least 13 nations are quietly co-operating in a “secret war” against Pyongyang and Tehran.

It has so far involved interceptions of North Korean ships at sea, US agents prowling the waterfronts in Taiwan, multinational naval and air surveillance missions out of Singapore, investigators poring over the books of dubious banks in the former Portuguese colony of Macau and a fleet of planes and ships eavesdropping on the “hermit kingdom” in the waters north of Japan.

[ . . . ] In a telling example of the programme’s success, two Bush administration officials indicated last year that it had blocked North Korea from obtaining equipment used to make missile propellant.

The Americans also persuaded China to stop the sale of chemicals for North Korea’s nuclear weapons scientists. And a shipload of “precursor chemicals” for weapons was seized in Taiwan before it could reach a North Korean port.

Sheridan also reports on the money trail:

In the past 10 months . . . the US and its allies have . . . tightened the screws on Kim’s clandestine fundraising, which generated some $500m a year for the regime. Robert Joseph, the US undersecretary for arms control, has disclosed that 11 North Korean “entities” — trading companies or banks — plus six from Iran and one from Syria were singled out for action under an executive order numbered 13382 and signed by Bush.

For the first time, the US Secret Service and the FBI released details of North Korean involvement in forging $100 notes and in selling counterfeit Viagra, cigarettes and amphetamines in collaboration with Chinese gangsters. The investigators homed in on a North Korean trading company and two banks in Macau. The firm, which had offices next to a casino and a “sauna”, was run by North Koreans with diplomatic passports, who promptly vanished. The two banks, Seng Heng bank and Banco Delta Asia, denied any wrongdoing. But the Macau authorities stepped in after a run on Banco Delta Asia and froze some $20m in North Korean accounts.

In his far-ranging article, Sheridan next notes that American officials fear Iran is negotiating to buy plutonium from North Korea in a move that would confound the international effort to stop Tehran’s nuclear weapons program.
The prospect of such a sale is “the next big thing”, according to a western diplomat involved with the issue. The White House commissioned an intelligence study on the risk last December but drew no firm conclusions.

On the subject of plutonium, Sheridan adds that (1) Siegfried Hecker, former head of the US Los Alamos nuclear weapons laboratory, has warned that North Korea’s plutonium would fit into a few suitcases and would be impossible to detect if it were sold, and (2) North Korea has made enough plutonium to sell some to Iran while keeping a sufficient amount for its own use.

Regarding relations between North Korea and Iran, Sheridan provides the following details:

Last November western intelligence sources told the German magazine Der Spiegel that a high-ranking Iranian official had travelled to Pyongyang to offer oil and natural gas in exchange for more co-operation on nuclear technology and ballistic missiles. Iran’s foreign ministry denied the report but diplomats in Beijing and Pyongyang believe it was accurate. At the same time evidence emerged through Iranian dissidents in exile that North Korean experts were helping Iran build nuclear-capable missiles in a vast tunnel complex under the Khojir and Bar Jamali mountains near Tehran.

As for Japan, Sheridan quotes Tetsuo Maeda, professor of defence studies at Tokyo International University: “The Japanese people are very angry and very worried and, right now, they will accept any government plan for the military.” In a similar vein, Yoichi Shimada, a professor of international relations at Fukui Prefectural University, says that “The vast majority of Japanese agree that we need to be able to carry out first strikes.”

Maeda thinks that the mood favors the ascent of Shinzo Abe, Japan’s hawkish chief cabinet secretary, the man most likely to take over from Junichiro Koizumi, the prime minister, who steps down in September: “He will be far more hardline on Pyongyang and I’m firmly of the opinion that he intends to make Japan into a nuclear power.” Shimada spoke to Abe earlier this week and told Sheridan that “he shares my opinion that for Japan, the most important step would be for Japan to have an offensive missile capability.”

The AP reports that Japan, while waiting to see whether the UN Security Council votes in favor of its proposed sanctions against North Korea, is considering whether a pre-emptive strike on North Korea’s missile bases would violate its constitution. Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe said that “If we accept that there is no other option to prevent an attack … there is the view that attacking the launch base of the guided missiles is within the constitutional right of self-defense. We need to deepen discussion.”

Exactly how Japan would carry out such an attack is far from clear. has no offensive weapons such as ballistic missiles that could reach North Korea. It armed forces have ground-to-air missiles and ground-to-vessel missiles, but no missiles that could reach North Korea. Furthermore, according to an unidentified military analyst, Japan’s fighter jets lack the range to bomb North Korea and return home. In his words, such an attack “would be an act of suicide.” This remark brings back certain memories from WWII.

The South Korean government appears to be more upset with Japan’s reaction to the North Korean missile launches than at the North Koreans. The AP article cites a statement from President Roh Moo-hyun’s office suggesting that Tokyo was contributing to tensions on the Korean Peninsula: “There is no reason to fuss over this from the break of dawn like Japan, but every reason to do the opposite.”

Two moments of truth—pertaining to Iran and to North Korea—are rapidly approaching for the Security Council. In the case of Iran, failure to implement measures of sufficient severity to dissuade Iran from becoming a nuclear power would fuel a nuclear arms race in the Middle East pitting the Shi’a against the Sunnis. In the case of North Korea, failure to implement sanctions with teeth would result in Japan’s rearmament, which would lead to a Sino-Japanese arms race. Russia couldn’t fail to react to an escalation of tensions between the Chinese and the Japanese. Should this sequence of events unfold, it goes without saying that it would represent a diplomatic nightmare for the U.S. And what would be the position of the South Koreans? Would it lead to more or fewer U.S. troops in South Korea?

It’s do-or-die for the Security Council, which played no role in the Balkan wars of the late 1990s and failed to enforce its sanctions against Saddam’s Iraq. Recently, Bush has been acting as if he’s giving multilateralism one (actually, two) last chance. If multilateralism doesn’t deliver the goods, he’ll be in a position to say I-told-you-so. Unilateralism may be down, but it’s not out.

UPDATE: In Japan, an NHK television poll showed that 82 percent of respondents said they felt “fearful or “somewhat fearful” of the seven missiles that North Korea shot into the Sea of Japan on July 5 . . . the Japanese parliament has previously ruled that a pre-emptive strike on missiles about to be fired at Japan may fall under the definition of self-defense.

No, I’m not talking about UN Security Council sanctions. I’m talking about unilateral sanctions undertaken by South Korea, Japan, and Australia—but not the U.S.

From the AP via CNN:

A South Korean official said:

We will hold off [on plans to ship 100,000 tons of fertilizer]. In addition, we will hold off on providing 500,000 tons of rice. This will continue until there is an exit out of the missile problem.

Japan’s minister of agriculture said his country won’t provide food, either:

I feel sorry for the people who are starving, but we have absolutely no plans to provide food aid to North Korea.

Australia, which has diplomatic relations with Pyongyang, said it plans to significantly curtail its ties.

The Australian reports that Australia is prepared to offer North Korea a cheap, secure energy deal, probably coal shipments, if the North Korea returns to peace talks, as part of an attempt to solve the missile crisis.

Worth noting:

The Guardian reports that the South Korean defence minister, Yoon Kwang-ung, said his country was developing cruise missile technology. According to a South Korea-US missile guideline signed in 2001, South Korea can only develop missiles with a range of up to 200 miles and a maximum payload of 500kg. Cruise missiles, however, are not subject to the range restriction. Seoul has tested cruise missiles about a dozen times in the past three years, a military official said.

____________________
In viewing Japan’s reaction to North Korea’s missile tests (and North Korea’s response to Japan’s reaction), it’s essential to keep this history in mind:

During the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905), Japanese forces moved into the Korean peninsula, despite Korean declarations of neutrality. The signing of the Japan-Korea Protection Treaty in 1905 gave Japan virtual control over Korea, and in 1910 a Korean royal proclamation announced the annexation by Japan. During its occupation, Japan built up Korea’s infrastructure, especially the street and railroad systems. However, the Japanese ruled with an iron fist and attempted to root out all elements of Korean culture from society. People were forced to adopt Japanese names, convert to the Shinto (native Japanese) religion, and were forbidden to use Korean language in schools and business. The Independence Movement on March 1, 1919, was brutally repressed, resulting in the killing of thousands, the maiming and imprisoning of tens of thousands, and destroying of hundreds of churches, temples, schools, and private homes. During World War II, Japan siphoned off more and more of Korea’s resources, including its people, to feed its Imperial war machine. Many of the forced laborers were never repatriated to Korea.

Last year, Japan approved a set of new history textbooks whose version of past events sparked this complaint from the South Korean Embassy in Japan:

The Republic of Korea expresses regret over the fact that some of the 2006 Japanese middle school text books… still contain content that justifies and glorifies wrongs committed in the past.

There’s still no love lost between Japan and both of the Koreas.

These are excerpts from an article in Military Magazine Online by Colonel John H. Roush, Jr. Roush discloses that Japan had tested a nuclear device on 9 August on one of their remote islands and planned to use small nuclear warheads installed on kamikaze-directed bombs against invasion troop ships. [This is news to me and I haven’t indepentently verified it]Thanks to reader Scott, here’s a description of the Japanese atomic program from Answers.com:

After the war, the U.S. occupation forces found a total of five cyclotrons, which they judged to be part of the weapons programs. Cyclotrons can be used for electromagnetic uranium enrichment as mass spectrometers, but by themselves would not be useful as production facilities. In the United States, large cyclotrons at the Berkeley Radiation Laboratory were used to develop even more massive Calutron machines at the Oak Ridge facility, which were used for the bulk of the electromagnetic enrichment, but the Japanese cyclotrons would have been much smaller than even the prototype American machines. The Japanese cyclotrons were then dumped into Tokyo harbor by the U.S. Army, though many American scientists tried to intervene, insisting that the cyclotrons by themselves couldn’t be used to make atomic weapons.

[ . . . ]

Very little is known about the size of the atomic program in Konan though it is conventionally thought to have been small in comparison with the successful U.S. effort. In 1946, a journalist named David Snell working for the Atlanta Constitution wrote a sensationalist story which indicated that Japan had in fact successfully developed and tested a nuclear weapon in Konan. Snell was a former reporter, soon to become Life Magazine correspondent assigned to the 24th Criminal Investigation Detachment in Korea. He interviewed a Japanese officer who said he had been in charge of counter intelligence at the Konan project before the fall of Japan.

According to the officer, who used a pseudonym in the article because he was afraid of retalliation by occupation forces, the program was able to assemble a complete nuclear weapon in a cave in Konan and detonate it on August 12, 1945 on an unmanned ship nearby. Reportedly, the weapon produced a mushroom shaped cloud with a diameter of about 100 m (the first American bomb, “Trinity”, had a mushroom cloud some three times the size of that), and also destroyed several ships in the test area. To the observers 20 mi (32 km) away, the bomb was brighter than the rising sun. The officer then claimed that the Russian Army, which captured Konan in November 1945 after some of the last fighting in the war, dismantled the Japanese project and shipped it and some of its scientists taken prisoner back to the Soviet Union.

[ . . . ]

A 1985 book by Robert Wilcox reprinted the Snell interview as a basis for investigating the Japanese WWII nuclear efforts. In addition to detailing the known Japanese army and navy efforts, the book cites numerous intelligence reports and interviews which indicated the Japanese might have had an atomic program at Konan. It also gave evidence that the Japanese navy, taking up the atomic project after Nishina’s Riken had been destroyed, increased the Japanese efforts to make a weapon. The book, prefaced by Derek deSolla Price, Avalon professor of the history of science at Yale University, who endorsed it, was both panned and praised. Price wrote, “No longer can we maintain that a Japanese bomb just couldn’t have happened. Obviously it ‘nearly’ did. The only questions are how near and what does it do to our judgment on the one case we have of atomic warfare.” James L. Stokesbury, author of A Short History of World War II, wrote: “I had no idea the Japanese were working as seriously on an atomic bomb…this has to modify our perception of one of the crucial issues of the war.”

It is appropriate to ask why President Truman ordered the dropping of the bombs. In 1945, 85% of the people polled agreed with the decision, and only 10% disagreed that it was necessary to bring about the end of the war. If you had asked veterans of the war, I believe it would have been 100% in favor.

[ . . . ]

To understand [Truman’s] decision, consider OPERATION DOWNFALL, which once was labeled top secret . . . In the first invasion, codenamed OLYMPIC, U.S. forces were to land on Kyushu on 1 Nov 45. The second invasion, 1 Mar 46, codenamed CORONET was to involve 22 combat divisions against one million defenders on the main island of Honshu.{br />

[ . . . ]

By the summer of 1945 it was clear to analysts that Japan was losing the war, but intercepted cables disclosed that Japanese leaders were not considering surrender. There was no serious response to many approaches for a peaceful conclusion.

[ . . . ]

Senior military leaders of the day were in almost unanimous agreement that an invasion would be necessary to end the war. Those decisions were carefully considered based upon several imperatives:

Read the rest of this entry »

Text of the joint statement issued Monday by six nations at talks in Beijing on North Korea’s nuclear program:

For the cause of peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and in northeast Asia at large, the six parties held in a spirit of mutual respect and equality serious and practical talks concerning the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula on the basis of the common understanding of the previous three rounds of talks and agreed in this context to the following:

1) The six parties unanimously reaffirmed that the goal of the six-party talks is the verifiable denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula in a peaceful manner.

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) committed to abandoning all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs and returning at an early date to the treaty on the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons (NPT) and to IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) safeguards.

The United States affirmed that is has no nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula and has no intention to attack or invade the DPRK with nuclear or conventional weapons.

The ROK (South Korea) reaffirmed its commitment not to receive or deploy nuclear weapons in accordance with the 1992 joint declaration of the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, while affirming that there exist no nuclear weapons within its territory.

The 1992 joint declaration of the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula should be observed and implemented.

The DPRK stated that it has the right to peaceful uses of nuclear energy.

The other parties expressed their respect and agreed to discuss at an appropriate time the subject of the provision of light-water reactor to the DPRK.

2) The six parties undertook, in their relations, to abide by the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations and recognized norms of international relations.

The DPRK and the United States undertook to respect each other’s sovereignty, exist peacefully together and take steps to normalize their relations subject to their respective bilateral policies.

The DPRK and Japan undertook to take steps to normalize their relations in accordance with the (2002) Pyongyang Declaration, on the basis of the settlement of unfortunate past and the outstanding issues of concern.

3) The six parties undertook to promote economic cooperation in the fields of energy, trade and investment, bilaterally and/or multilaterally.

China, Japan, the Republic of Korea (ROK), Russia and the U.S. stated their willingness to provide energy assistance to the DPRK. The ROK reaffirmed its proposal of July 12, 2005, concerning the provision of 2 million kilowatts of electric power to the DPRK.

4) Committed to joint efforts for lasting peace and stability in northeast Asia. The directly related parties will negotiate a permanent peace regime on the Korean Peninsula at an appropriate separate forum.

The six parties agreed to explore ways and means for promoting security cooperation in northeast Asia.

5) The six parties agreed to take coordinated steps to implement the aforementioned consensus in a phased manner in line with the principle of ‘’commitment for commitment, action for action.’’

6) The six parties agreed to hold the fifth round of the six party talks in Beijing in early November 2005 at a date to be determined through consultations.

Comments of Christopher Hill, the American chief negotiator:

The problem is not yet solved but we hope it can be solved eventually through this agreement. We have to take the momentum of this agreement and see that it is implemented. This is first time they have committed to completely dismantle their weapons in an international agreement. They cannot just stall and pretend it does not exist. I think they have gotten the message.

One down, one to go: Iran.

Arthur Chrenkoff’s blog is one of my primary sources in the blogosphere. He’s really good at synthesizing information, as this post, which I republish in its entirity, shows:

Geo-strategy watch: focus on East Asia

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

The action:

“The European Union yesterday refused a Franco-German request to lift its arms embargo on China amid fierce disagreements over the country’s human rights record and military ambitions…

“Sanctions were imposed in 1989 after the Tiananmen Square massacre. France has led the drive to lift them, deeming it misguided to treat an emerging economic superpower – and the host of the next Olympic Games – as a pariah state. “Behind the French move is a subtle attempt to draw China into a strategic alliance to counter American power.”

Reaction:

Item 1:

“Japan took another step away from its post-World War II pacifism yesterday by ending its decades-old ban on military exports and telling defence planners to regard China and North Korea as threats.

“Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s Cabinet agreed to allow military sales – only to the US and for missile defence – a day after it extended Japan’s ground-breaking deployment to Iraq for another year.”

Item 2:

“Japanese troops could soon be training with Diggers [Australian soldiers] on Australian soil for the first time as part of a move to forge closer military ties…

“Although only in the early stages, the contentious military training talks, which have not reached ministerial level, are certain to divide war veterans and others in the community. “It could also pose problems for Canberra’s burgeoning relationship with China – including the pursuit of a free trade deal – given ongoing tensions between Beijing and Tokyo… “Allowing Japanese troops to train in Australia would be viewed dimly by China, which is likely to become Australia’s biggest trading partner over the next decade.”

As the story points out, antagonizing China is not the only potential downside – Australia’s veterans community is strongly anti-Japanese, a testament to the fierce and savage nature of fighting in the Pacific theater, as well as abominable treatment of Allied POWs by their Japanese captors. This is one World War Two legacy which has neither seen a closure nor benefited from reconciliation.

Back to the broader point – watch as France keeps courting China, and Russia keeps courting India, both moves clearly a part of anti-American coalition building. The matters are complicated, of course, by the fact that India and China, in turn, are traditional enemies. I guess nothing in international life was meant to be easy.

From the New York Times:

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. 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. 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.