By Clint Richards
Referencing its U.S. alliance at every step, the LDP sees no reason to pull back on normalization.
Japan is beginning its full-court press in pursuit of a more normalized military posture, with several moving pieces working in tandem to achieve that goal. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government’s dexterity in pushing forward several key pieces of this policy at once is indicative of its absolute hold on power in the Diet, and the lack of any concerted opposition there or among the public at large. It appears that, although the government has promised it will gain public understanding and support for its new collective self-defense interpretation, it does not expect to face any major challenges before the end of the year.
Two recent high-level meetings between U.S. and Japanese defense officials show that the Japanese government has every intention of codifying its change in military posture, albeit in stages. A new schedule to rewrite the Guidelines for Japan-U.S. Defense Cooperation was reached by U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and Japanese Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera last Friday. The new guidelines are to be finalized before the end of the year, with an interim report scheduled for some time in September or October, according to sources who spoke with the Yomiuri Shimbun. The government sources expect the revision of the guidelines to focus on cooperation over grey-zone issues, specifically the seizure of remote islands. As this specific grey-zone issue was one that the ruling LDP wanted included in the Cabinet’s new interpretation of collective self-defense, it appears to be seeking to further entrench U.S. support, and perhaps lower the threshold for U.S. cooperation in such cases. The current guidelines were written in 1997 when tensions on the Korean Peninsula were the biggest bilateral security concern, and they do not address grey-zone issues.
Read the full story at The Diplomat