Japan's Cabinet endorsed yesterday a bill to create a full-fledged defense ministry as the pacifist nation looks to play a greater role in international security despite sensitivities over its militarist past.
"While the importance of the role of the Defense Agency and defense issues have been increasing in recent years, we need to upgrade the Defense Agency to the Defense Ministry to deal with various situations properly," Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe told reporters.
Since the years following the end of World War II, Japan has only had a defense agency, which has a lower status than other ministries.
guilt subsiding
The Defense Agency has long pushed for ministry status and the post of defense minister. National guilt for wartime atrocities is subsiding as the nation takes a greater role in international peacekeeping and disaster relief efforts.
The agency's attempts had until now failed because of political sensitivities over memories of Japan's past military aggression. However, a security council chaired by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi approved the bill on Thursday.
The ruling Liberal Democratic Party's coalition partner, New Komeito, which had previously been a stumbling block to an upgrade, also gave its approval.
The bill is unlikely to be cleared during the current session of parliament, which ends on June 18, so passage is seen as more likely during an extraordinary parliamentary session scheduled to begin later this year.
overseas operations
The bill also aims to upgrade Japanese troops' peacekeeping and other overseas operations to part of their regular duties in addition to home defense.
Japan, which renounced war under a US-imposed 1947 Constitution, calls its troops "Self-Defense Forces." However, it has sent some 600 troops to Iraq in a first deployment since World War II to a country where fighting is under way.
Dispatched to the relatively safe southern city of Samawa on a humanitarian assistance program, their mission relies on protection from Australian and British forces, with the Japanese troops only permitted to use their weapons in self defense.
The bill will also scrap the scandal-tainted Defense Facilities Administration Agency and integrate its functions into the planned ministry.
Created in 1954, the defense agency is under the direct control of the prime minister and is headed by Director-General Fukushiro Nukaga, a state minister.
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