Japan plans to upgrade Defense Agency status

TOKYO, June 9: Japan's cabinet today formally endorsed largely symbolic legislation to upgrade Japan's Defense Agency into a fully-fledged ministry.

The government was expected to submit the bill to upgrade the Agency to an extraordinary parliamentary session later this year.

''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.

The ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has long been keen on the upgrade, but its junior coalition partner, the Buddhist-backed Komeito party, has been less enthusiastic.

The envisaged legislation is part of a move by the Japanese government to regularise the status of its armed forces. One step would involve revising the pacifist clause of the U.S.-drafted postwar constitution.

Article 9 of the constitution renounces the right to war as a means of settling international disputes.

The Defense Agency, formed in 1954, is under the direct control of the prime minister and it has kept a relatively low-profile at home and abroad largely due to Japan's pacifist constitution.

At present, the Defense Agency chief cannot call cabinet meetings on defence policies or take direct charge of requesting the annual military budget.

Efforts to revise the 1947 constitution have gained momentum in recent years as Japan seeks a bigger regional and global security role.

In November, the LDP adopted a draft of a new constitution that would recognise the nation's right to maintain a military and play a bigger role in global security.

But constitutional revisions face a high hurdle.

Changes require the approval of two-thirds of the members of both houses of parliament and then a majority of the voters in a national referendum.

Japan's defence spending is the world's fourth-biggest after the United States, Russia and China.

Reuters