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| Image: Flickr User - Official U.S. Navy Page |
By Mina Pollmann
LDP official Masahiko Komura makes the case for collective self-defense after meeting with US Defense Secretary Carter.
Masahiko Komura, vice president of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party and former foreign minister, visited Washington and met with U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter on Thursday. At their meeting, Carter praised Japan’s recent efforts to develop a new legal framework to better defend Japan in an increasingly uncertain East Asia. Komura explained to Carter that the Japanese government wants to be able to exercise the now constitutionally recognized right to collective defense to defend U.S. warships attacked in contingencies that have a security impact on Japan, such as a Korean peninsula crisis.
The new framework would also provide the legal basis for the revisions expected in the Bilateral Defense Guidelines. The Guidelines clarify the roles and expectations for U.S. military and Japanese Self-Defense Forces (SDF) cooperation in a contingency. The Guidelines were last updated in 1997.
On Friday, Komura gave a speech at the U.S.-Japan Security Seminar 2015 at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). In his speech, he offered a concise history and clear defense of the Cabinet decision to reinterpret the Constitution last July. The Constitution is ultimately a contract with the people to defend their lives and happiness, Komura argued. Therefore, it is illogical for anything in the Constitution to constrict the government’s ability to defend the state’s very survival.
Read the full story at The Diplomat