Tokyo must "actively engage itself in world affairs," write the document’s authors. They focus their concerns on the workers states of China and north Korea, and on their imperialist competitors, particularly the United States--the dominant imperialist power in Asia and the Pacific.

Drawn up by a task force on foreign relations and released in November, the document, entitled "Basic Strategies for Japan’s Foreign Policy in the 21st Century," states, "The world is undergoing vast changes as the United States emerges as a hyperpower, China takes on new dynamism and the EU [European Union] continues to work toward an integrated state. The changes in international situations coming in the next 20 years will be greater than those experienced in any other 20 year period in modern history.... Japanese foreign policy needs to rethink its priorities in this new world."

While advocating "further enhancement" of the Washington-Tokyo alliance, the document calls for a "comprehensive reexamination of its relationship with the United States." Japan must have "its own axis of coordinates," it states; it is undesirable "that the Japan-U.S. relationship will become like the one between the UK and the U.S."

Some 40,000 U.S. troops are stationed in Japan. The island of Okinawa, site of the largest troop concentration and scene of many protests calling for their withdrawal, labors under "excessive burdens" of U.S. forces, states the document.

The document expresses concern about China’s "military buildup," describing it as a potential "threat to Japan and other countries of the region."  
 
Competition with China
The authors also talk of concern about economic competition from China. "The only solution to the hollowing out of Japanese industry due to Japanese companies’ direct investment in China," they write, "is for Japan itself to become an attractive, high-value-added manufacturing economy."

Suggesting one line of attack, the task force proposes the establishment of a "network of bilateral free trade agreements" with China, south Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and other countries belonging to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Such a trade pact has been reached with Singapore and negotiations are taking place with the governments in the Philippines, Thailand, and south Korea.

Reporting on the Task Force’s findings, the Financial Times noted that the last time Tokyo tried to forge such a "borderless economic sphere" was 60 years ago in World War II, when the Japanese armed forces conquered much of Southeast Asia before confronting both local uprisings and the rival U.S. colossus.

The task force report urges the Japanese government to reduce its reliance on oil from the Middle East, from where it gets more than three-quarters of its petroleum needs--and turn its attention to reserves in Russia, the Caspian Sea, and Africa.

The document also reaffirms Tokyo’s long-term hostility toward the north Korean workers state, declaring that Tokyo’s objective is to "change the nature of [north Korea’s] political and economic systems."

The revolution that produced the north Korean workers state was born as a struggle against Japan’s decades-long colonial rule. There will be "no normalization of relations between Japan and North Korea," the task force report declares, until the north Korean government "resolves the many problems...of nuclear weapons and missiles." Tokyo has sided with Washington in the tearing up of contracts to supply fuel oil and food aid to the north.

With the imperialist stance of hostility toward Pyongyang--falsely accused of having aggressive designs on both Japan and south Korea--some voices have gone so far as to advocate the development of nuclear weapons. "The times have changed to the point that even revising the constitution is being talked about," said Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda last May. "Depending upon the world situation, circumstances...could require Japan to possess nuclear weapons."

In response to those remarks, the north Korean government’s official news agency said Tokyo "should discard its nuclear ambition" and remember "the lessons of history drawn from the nuclear disaster suffered by it in the past."

The task force also refers to the 13 Japanese citizens who were taken by north Korean government agents in the 1970s and 1980s. Japanese government officials have whipped up a campaign around the abductions to justify maintaining the cutoff of food aid in 2000 to north Korea.

"It is difficult to send food aid to North Korea now when there is strong public feeling or even hatred towards north Korea," said Hideshi Takesada, an official at Japan’s National Institute for Defense Studies. Like Washington, Tokyo seeks to exploit the chronic food shortages in the country, which has suffered from years of crop failures and harsh weather conditions.

Chipping away at restraints

The approach laid out in broad terms by the task force fits with the policy course of recent Japanese governments. Over the past decade capitalist politicians have been chipping away at restrictions on the use of armed forces abroad. These restraints are embodied in the constitution imposed by Washington during its military occupation of the country following Japan’s surrender in 1945. Such restrictions include a ban on the use of troops abroad.

The rulers have been partly motivated by the experience of the Gulf War, in which they forked over to Washington more than $13 billion toward the cost of the U.S.-led and organized invasion.

Like the other imperialist powers, Tokyo has used the so-called war on terror as a propaganda basis to begin to step up its intervention abroad. In December the Navy sent the Aegis-equipped guided missile destroyer Kirishima to the Indian Ocean. At Washington’s urging, Tokyo had already stationed destroyers, a minesweeper, and supply ships in the region, in step with the U.S. assault on Afghanistan in November 2001.

Earlier smaller-scale military forays abroad have frequently been organized as part of United Nations missions. Nearly 700 troops were sent to East Timor last year. "Non-combat" soldiers have been dispatched to Cambodia, Mozambique, Rwanda, Indonesia, and the Golan Heights.

"The dispatch of noncombatant troops to the ISAF (International Security Force) in Afghanistan" is a more recent example cited approvingly by the task force.

Japan has one of the world’s largest standing armies with some 250,000 troops and a yearly military budget of $45 billion--the highest among imperialist countries after the United States. Its naval lineup includes 54 destroyers, 16 submarines, 29 auxiliary ships, 8 landing vessels, and 3 patrol combat aircraft.

The Japanese government’s discussion on foreign policy comes as an economic crisis continues to pummel the country. Last year corporate bankruptcies reached their second highest level in 60 years. The banking crisis still choking the economy was registered by the January 21 announcement of Mizuho Holdings, one of the world’s largest banks by assets, that it expects to lose $16.5 billion for the fiscal year ending March 31. This was reported to be the worst result in Japanese corporate history.  
 
 
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