By Ankit Panda
On Wednesday, the U.S. and Japan released an update to their bilateral defense guidelines.
The United States and Japan released an interim report on Wednesday updating their mutual defense guidelines for the first time in nearly 20 years. The guideline revision was prompted in part by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s cabinet’s decision to reinterpret Article 9 of Japan’s constitution to allow for the country to participate in collective self-defense. The last time the two countries revised the guidelines was in 1997.This year’s revision was originally scheduled for late September but was delayed over concerns regarding the wording of the released statement. A final bilateral report on mutual defense guidelines will be issued before the end of the year.
A U.S. state department official noted that the new guidelines will “capture the greater scope of [U.S.-Japan] alliance cooperation, reflecting its more global nature.” The initiative to revisit the guidelines emerged from a two-plus-two meeting last year between the defense and foreign secretaries of both the U.S. and Japan. According to U.S. officials, revisiting the defense guidelines fits in with the United States’ “pivot to Asia” strategy, which emphasizes re-balancing U.S. commitments in the region and encouraging allied states to take a greater stake in their own security. Koji Kano, a Japanese defense ministry official, notes that what the U.S. and Japan “need to address today is quite different from what [they] were aiming for in 1997,” according to the Associated Press. Kano added, “The point is how Japan and the U.S. can respond better in the current environment.”
Japan’s decision to reinterpret its constitutional ban on collective self-defense drew criticism from its neighbors, notably China and South Korea. Ahead of the interim report being released, a U.S. high-level delegation comprising U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Russel and Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs David Shear visited South Korea to brief Seoul on the content of the new U.S.-Japan defense guidelines.
Read the full story at The Diplomat