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| US SecDef Chuck Hagel & Japans Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera |
By Ankit Panda
U.S. and Japanese officials will release a report Wednesday outlining new guidelines for bilateral defense cooperation.
As my colleague Clint noted here on the Tokyo Report last week, Tokyo has been “eerily” silent on the issue of collective self-defense ever since Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s Cabinet boldly reinterpreted Article 9 of the Japanese constitution, establishing a right to engage Japanese military forces in the defense of another country. Turns out, that silence will be broken shortly as Japan and the United States will release a joint interim report on a planned revision of their bilateral defense cooperation guidelines on Wednesday. The report was originally scheduled for late September but was delayed in order to better refine the wording, according to a report by Kyodo News.
The interim report will likely clarify what the collective self-defense reinterpretation means for bilateral defense scenarios such as Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Forces (JMSDF) ships’ ability to defend U.S. ships in international waters, and Japan’s ability to intercept ballistic missiles. The report is also expected to emphasize Japan’s “exclusively defense-oriented” policy. Ever since the collective self-defense reinterpretation this summer, Abe has been keen to revise the guidelines with the United States to give shape to his administration’s plans for a more “proactive” security policy. Abe has described his vision for Japan’s security policy in the region as “proactive pacifism.”
Read the full story at The Diplomat