Japan's powerful lower house of parliament yesterday approved a bill to upgrade Japan's defense agency to a full ministry to allow its troops a greater role in case of possible threats from abroad.
The bill would bolster the agency's status within the government.
Currently, Japan's military is strictly constrained by the country's pacifist Constitution -- which Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has vowed to revise. The defense agency is part of the Cabinet office rather than a separate ministry.
The bill was passed by the house's security committee earlier yesterday and was to be sent to the other chamber for further debate and a separate vote in coming weeks. But the passage by the lower house makes the bill's enactment almost certain because of the ruling bloc's domination in both houses.
The bill would make the defense forces' overseas peacekeeping activities a part of its regular duties, in addition to defense and disaster relief at home. Their overseas relief and humanitarian missions under UN auspices are currently outside of the defense forces' core activities.
In a bid to boost its international profile, Japan sent non-combat troops to southern Iraq to help rebuild that country. Japan also approved late last month a one-year extension of its naval mission in the Indian Ocean to support the US-led anti-terrorism campaign in Afghanistan.
Both operations were criticized by some in Japan as violating the nation's pacifist constitution, which prohibits the use of force in solving international disputes.
"The bill would knock the bottom out of Japan's security policy and trample on the Article 9 [pacifist] clause of the Constitution," said opposition Communist Party lawmaker Seiken Akamine.
"The bill merely aims to send the defense forces abroad to back US-led war," he said.
The agency is expected to become a ministry early next year.
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