DPJ panel seeks to create national security council+

TOKYO, Nov. 23 Kyodo -
A foreign and security policy panel of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan has
drafted a set of proposals including one that calls for the creation of a
national security council in order to strengthen Japan's ability to collect
defense-related information, according to the full text of the proposal
obtained by Kyodo News.
The proposal says that such a council, comprising lawmakers in charge of
defense-related information and security, should be created to boost the
information-gathering ability of the premier's office.
Meanwhile, the panel refrained from including a proposal calling for restoring
old military terms for the Self-Defense Forces, an idea included in its earlier
version of the proposal.
These terms, used for the imperial Japanese forces before the end of World War
II, have been carefully avoided by the SDF in line with the war-renouncing
Constitution.
The panel decided to drop the measure after many of the panel members opposed
the idea during its meeting last Thursday.
The draft proposal, put forward in connection with the drawing up of a new
national defense program outline the government plans to adopt later this year,
also calls for the government to strengthen deterrent power and warning and
surveillance capacity of the Maritime and Air Self-Defense Forces around
islands in southwestern Japan in response to China's military buildup.
The panel will submit the set of proposals to the government as early as Friday
and urge the government to reflect them in the new policy platform, called the
National Defense Program Guidelines, for the country's defense programs for the
next five years, when the Cabinet determines the platform on Dec. 10.
As for the basic principle underlying the new platform, the proposal calls for
Japan to play a role as a ''peace-creating nation'' and to aim for establishing
''comprehensive security,'' in the field of diplomacy and the economy, as well
as in military matters.
Other proposed measures include the revision of Japan's decades-old arms
embargo policy.
Japan declared a ban in 1967 on weapons exports to communist states, countries
to which the United Nations bans such exports, and parties to international
conflicts. But Tokyo tightened the policy in 1976 and imposed an almost blanket
ban on such exports.
While upholding the 1967 policy, the proposal called on the government to
review the blanket ban prohibiting any exports to countries not coming under
the categories designated in the 1967 ban, and to come up with new criteria to
allow such exports.
Other proposed measures include reviewing the law on cooperation for U.N.
peacekeeping operations in order to promote the activities of SDF troops taking
part.
The draft proposals also urge the government to switch from the present concept
of ''basic defense power'' or ''standard defense force'' to a new concept of
''dynamic deterrence'' to counter a diversity of threats more flexibly.
==Kyodo
2010-11-23 23:11:20