TOKYO, Aug. 5 (Xinhua) — Japan’s Defense Ministry on Tuesday launched “Defense of Japan 2026,” a white paper that intentionally distorts the regional safety panorama and performs up so-called “external threats.”
Cloaked within the rhetoric of “peace” and “defense,” the doc seeks to hide Japan’s sinister agenda of increasing army capabilities and breaking away from its long-standing “exclusively defense-oriented policy.”
Hyping up a so-called “increasingly severe” regional safety atmosphere and peddling a fabricated “China threat,” the doc is nothing greater than a political smokescreen manufactured by Japan’s right-wing politicians to stoke safety anxieties, manipulate home public opinion and discover excuses to construct up its army.
In truth, Japan is the one fanning regional tensions.
The administration of Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has brazenly made faulty remarks regarding China’s Taiwan, repeatedly exaggerated safety threats within the “Indo-Pacific region” and considerably accelerated preparations for warfare.
It has additionally pushed ahead the militarization of Japan’s southwestern islands underneath the pretext of “responding to challenges,” constantly elevating regional safety dangers and changing into a supply of instability within the Asia-Pacific area.
The new white paper stresses the necessity for Japan to basically reinforce so-called “defense capabilities,” however its plans have lengthy gone past the wants of self-defense, exposing Tokyo’s ambitions to accumulate long-range offensive strike capabilities.
In March, Japan deployed the Type 25 surface-to-ship guided missile and the Type 25 hypervelocity gliding projectiles in Kumamoto and Shizuoka prefectures, respectively, marking the nation’s first deployment of long-range missiles with enemy base strike capabilities.
In July, Japan’s Self-Defense Forces performed their first test-firing of U.S.-made Tomahawk cruise missiles from a destroyer.
According to the white paper, Japan will additional develop such capabilities by creating air-launched and ship-launched variants of the Type 25 missile, advancing analysis on hypersonic missiles, and introducing foreign-made stand-off missiles.
This sequence of army growth plans with pronounced offensive traits constitutes irrefutable proof that the precept of “exclusively defense-oriented policy,” which Japan has lengthy upheld because the finish of World War II, now exists in identify solely.
More alarming nonetheless, Japan claims within the white paper to be utilizing “comprehensive national power” to handle so-called “challenges,” reflecting a harmful mindset that seeks to put your entire nation on a army footing.
Furthermore, the brand new white paper introduces a brand new chapter on “trends in new ways of warfare” and considerably expands protection of efforts to reinforce Japan’s protection manufacturing and technological bases, emphasizing the incorporation of civilian applied sciences for safety use.
It additionally brazenly advocates that safeguarding Japan requires not solely the efforts of the Ministry of Defense and the Self-Defense Forces; collaboration from all of Japanese society is important. This is, in essence, a harmful try by Japan’s right-wing forces to mobilize society as a complete for complete “remilitarization.”
No matter how lighthearted the white paper’s manga-style cowl could also be, or what number of purported “regional threats” it invokes, it can not conceal the intent of Japan’s right-wing forces to revert to army enlargement.
The Takaichi administration’s headlong rush towards army buildup and rearmament won’t solely additional erode the inspiration of Japan’s postwar pacifist structure, however can even inevitably hurt Japan’s personal elementary pursuits and undermine peace and stability within the Asia-Pacific area.
The new protection white paper as soon as once more exposes Japan’s harmful neo-militarist agenda. The worldwide group should stay vigilant.