Posted on : Jul.3,2006 10:27 KST

U.S. not likely to allow Japan unchecked force expansion, experts say

There are major challenges to the balance of military power in Northeast Asia. China’s military modernization program is one factor, but the epicenter is the globalization of the alliance between Japan and the United States.

The reorganization of U.S. forces in Japan and Korea is part of global U.S. military strategy and its goal is to fight terrorism and keep China in check. The U.S. seeks to move its 1st Corps headquarters to Camp Zama, near Tokyo, and integrate the commands of the United States Forces Japan (USFJ) and Japan’s Self Defense Forces (SDF). It is also strengthening its military forces on Guam, which is within two to three hours’ flight range of the Korean Peninsula, Japan, and Taiwan.

"Japan has come to play a greater role in deterring China and North Korea," says Michael Green, a former White House official for Asian affairs. "Ten years ago it would have been unimaginable to have Japan intervening in a crisis in the Taiwan straits, but now just not knowing how Japan would react is itself a deterrence."

There has also been rapid progress in discussions about missile defense (MD), and North Korea’s preparations for a missile launch are acting as a propellant. U.S. Senate Armed Service Committee chairman John Warner said on June 27 that the current situation is "strong evidence of the need for the research, development, and permanent deployment of MD." The U.S. and Japan are hurrying to have the latest interceptor missiles and observation radar in place, and China and North Korea are the hypothetical targets.

For the first time, the U.S. military plans to locate land-launched Patriot 4 interceptor missile on U.S. bases in Okinawa and Kadena within the year. Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force Aegis ships, which have the ability to track missiles from the water, had already been deployed to the East Sea and the Pacific and in mid-July they will be joined by two more from the U.S. Navy. On June 23, the U.S. started testing X-band radar equipment at an Air Self Defense Force facility in Aomori Prefecture.

China takes the position that even if the U.S.-Japan alliance is strengthened in such a way, it is still U.S.-led, and will therefore not be reinforced in the way Japan would like it to be. China believes that Japan will try to use the alliance to promote MD, revise its "peace constitution," and elevate the SDF to the level of a regular military, but that the U.S. will find all of that unacceptable.

A Japan researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences says the U.S. will support a revision of the Peace Constitution and the strengthening of Japan’s international standing, as long as it takes place within parameters that do not harm America’s interests. And, he said, "ultimately the U.S. is trying to use Japan in its global strategy."

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