With a set of bills raised by the Japanese government to upgrade the Defense Agency into a ministry clearing the parliament as expected on Friday, the administrative body of Japan's armed forces will have a new name in January. The prospective defense ministry will no longer be affiliated with the Cabinet Office and thus go out of direct control of the prime minister.

The current "director general," the executive chief whose post is held by a less powerful state minister, will be upgraded into a full "minister," whose new power will include calling for a Cabinet meeting on defense issues and requesting budgets directly to the Finance Ministry.

The upcoming changes are to be much more than that. Since its establishment in 1954, the defense agency has been restricted within Japan's war-renouncing pacifist Constitution, and its main tasks have been defense of the nation, social security preservation and disaster relief at home.

However, under the new legislation, the overseas missions, including peacekeeping, disaster relief, humanitarian assistance and even logistic support for the U.S. army, will be upgraded into the Self-Defense Forces(SDF)' essential duties from their current subordinate positions.

The changes of duties will not only bring new equipment and organizing structures to the SDF, but also a change in nature. The new legislation clears barriers for the Japanese armed forces on their way of going beyond "self-defense" and justifies their unconstrained heading to the world.

According to Article 9 of the pacifist Constitution, "the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes."

The article stipulated that "in order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized."

However, voices calling for upgrading the Defense Agency have never calmed down. Especially in recent years, quite a number of political parties and politicians pushed for the revision of the Constitution, including the revision of Article 9.

Some political figures even advocated the grant of "collective self-defense" and the use of force abroad to the SDF, and drummed up the "preemptive" attack on an "enemy." They attempted to upgrade the SDF into a so-called self-defense army, and make a shift from the postwar "self-defense-only" security strategy.

Aiming for a stronger armed presence on the international stage, the Japanese government sent the SDF into overseas missions during the Gulf War, the Afghanistan War and the Iraq War.

Now that the U.S. military in Japan is under a large-scale realignment, the Japanese government intends to take the opportunity to integrate the SDF with the U.S. army on military command and operation.

With overseas missions being incorporated into essential duties of the SDF, the armed forces will lose their intrinsic character and will no longer be troops only for self-defense.

Analysts said the upgrade of the defense agency has reflected Japan's military ambition. Under the surface of a mere lift of the defense agency's administrative level is the real attempt to further unbind the SDF to let it go beyond Japan without restraint and exert Japan's influence as a "big military power" on the international stage.

Source: Xinhua