NKorean test seen pushing Japan down military path
by Harumi Ozawa Mon Oct 9, 2:14 AM ET
TOKYO (AFP)
North Korea's announcement that it has tested a nuclear bomb is set to push Japan to expand its own military and stir debate on what was once the ultimate taboo of developing atomic weapons itself.
The test comes with Japan in the midst of expanding its defense posture, 60 years after it was defeated in World War II and forced by the United States to renounce the right to a military.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who took office just two weeks ago, is a sworn hawk on North Korea who has long supported a larger role for Japan's military alongside its ally the United States.
"North Korea's nuclear weapons test can never be pardonable. But we should collect and analyze more intelligence on the matter in a cool-headed manner," Abe said Monday as he visited Seoul, according to a report.
In Tokyo, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuhisa Shiozaki, the spokesman for Abe's spokesman, said a North Korean test would post a "grave threat to stability in Northeast Asia" and that Japan will lodge a strong protest if it is confirmed.
Analysts expect North Korea's test to boost the hand of Abe, who wants to rewrite the pacifist 1947 constitution and allow Japanese troops to engage in overseas operations alongside allies.
Despite its pacifism and US guarantees to protect Japan, the country now has around 240,000 troops on active duty and an annual military budget of 4.81 trillion yen (41.6 billion dollars).
A draft new constitution would preserve Japan's official pacifism but acknowledge it has a military -- and not the "Self-Defense Forces" as they are currently known.
Japan has already been taking a larger international military role. It sent a small but symbolic reconstruction mission to Iraq, the first time since World War II that Tokyo has deployed in a country where fighting is under way.
Japan is also believed to be capable of assembling nuclear weapons if it makes the political decision to do so.