THE Japanese government, ignoring yet again its own constitution, which bans Japan having aggressive military forces, has approved a new national security strategy, and increased defence spending to strengthen its anti-China alliance with the US.
Japan is an economic superpower and has the capacity to restore itself rapidly to its pre-Second World War status, as an aggressive major imperialist power.
Over the next five years it will develop and buy drones, stealth aircraft and amphibious vehicles with a view to having a massive marine unit.
This will be to take offensive action alongside the USA against China. This is not a defensive project to defend Japan, it is aggressive, to allow Japan to play its part in an attack on China, alongside its US and South Korean allies.
The cover for its rapid rearmament is ‘fear of China’. However, from the 1930’s till its 1945 surrender Japan laid China waste, destroying its infrastructure and killing tens of millions of Chinese citizens.
Throughout the 20th century Japanese imperialism sought to convert China and Korea into its colonies and the Chinese and Korean peoples into slaves.
It is they who fear Japanese imperialism not vice versa.
The recently elected Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, has just called for Japan to broaden the scope of activities performed by its military – something banned by the post-war constitution.
He has also established a National Security Council that can oversee key issues.
Spending over the next five years is expected to amount to 23.97 trillion yen ($232bn, £142bn), a rise of 2.6% once billions of yen in cost savings are taken into account.
Japan plans to buy two anti-missile destroyers, five submarines, 52 amphibious vehicles, three surveillance drones, 28 F-35 fighter planes and 17 Boeing Osprey aircraft, capable of vertical take-off.
Once again, Japan has no fear of invasion since the USA guarantees Japan’s defence, with a nuclear powered aircraft carrier and 50,000 troops stationed there.
Japanese rearmament is 100% aggressive, and part of the assembly of a US-Japanese-South Korean force capable of attacking China.
The announcement of more Japanese military spending comes just weeks after China established an air defence identification zone (ADIZ) over a swathe of the East China Sea, including islands, which China claim but are currently occupied by Japan.
Japan, US and South Korea – which claim a rock that lies within China’s declared zone – have condemned China’s move while the US has warned China against establishing another ADIZ over the South China Sea.
Speaking recently in the Philippines, US Secretary of State John Kerry said that ‘China should refrain from taking similar, unilateral actions elsewhere in the region and in particular, over the South China Sea.’
President Obama has made no secret of the fact that the US’ main naval, air and land forces are being shifted to South East Asia to face up to the ‘Chinese threat’.
China has already condemned the outlines of the Japanese defence policy and says it is ‘closely watching’ Japan’s security strategy and policy direction.
‘Japan’s unreasonable criticism of China’s normal maritime activities and its hyping up of the China threat has hidden political motives,’ Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said.
The Japanese Premier Abe has also spoken about the need to end the ban on Japanese weapons exports to strengthen its huge industrial giants, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd and Kawasaki Heavy Industries Ltd.
Past Japanese governments have breached the limits of a postwar Constitution that renounces war and says Japan will never have an army or navy. Abe has ripped it up, and is lifting a ban on the Japanese armed forces fighting overseas or aiding an ally under attack, clearing the way for an aggressive anti-China alliance with the US and South Korea.
War can be triggered, or China’s level of determination to defend itself tested, by a Japanese engineered clash with China over this rock in the China Sea, with the United States treaty-bound to defend Japan in the event of war.
The Japanese working class is opposed to another imperialist war. It must ally itself with the Chinese working class to prevent war by overthrowing Japanese imperialism and advancing to socialism in Japan and all over south east Asia.
