20100911 Japan concerned over PRC’s military activities, spending

Japan concerned over PRC’s military activities, spending

REUTERS , TOKYO
Saturday, Sep 11, 2010, Page 1

Japan expressed concern over China’s growing military activities yesterday and urged Beijing to be clearer about its defense spending, as discord over islets in the East China Sea raised tensions between the Asian economic powers.

In an annual report, Japan’s Defense Ministry also sounded an alarm bell over the possibility of North Korea developing missile-mountable nuclear weapons in the near future.

“China has been intensifying its maritime activities, including those in waters near Japan,” the defense white paper said. “The lack of transparency of its national defense policies and its military activities are a matter of concern for the region and the international community, including Japan.”

China’s defense spending has nearly quadrupled over the past decade, while that of Japan, saddled with a weaker economy and a public debt twice the size of its US$5 trillion economy, shrank by 4 percent, the report said.

Japan’s 230,000-member military is roughly on a par with Germany’s, but only a 10th the size of China’s.

Japan, whose military has been constrained by a pacifist Constitution, is currently reviewing its defense policies for the first time in more than five years and aims to complete the update by the end of the year.

In April, two Chinese submarines and eight warships were spotted 140km southwest of Okinawa, the first time Japan has confirmed the presence of Chinese submarines and such a large number of vessels in the vicinity of the island where US bases are concentrated.

China did not violate any international law by having ships in the area, but Japanese Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa said the ministry would investigate to see if China has any intentions against Japan.

The release of the white paper follows Wednesday’s arrest of a Chinese trawler captain after his boat collided with two Japanese Coast Guard boats near disputed islets known as the Senkaku in Japanese and the Diaoyu in Chinese.

The Japanese government earlier this year postponed the publication of the white paper, originally set for July, because of what media said was a desire to avoid upsetting South Korea ahead of the centenary of Tokyo’s annexation of the Korean Peninsula, which took effect on Aug. 29, 1910.

This year’s defense report, like other recent editions, asserted Tokyo’s claim to another group of rocky islets over which Seoul also says it has sovereignty. They are called the Dokdo in Korean and the Takeshima in Japanese.

The defense white paper, the first such report since the Democratic Party took power in Japan last year, condemned North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs.

“North Korea’s nuclear tests, coupled with the fact that the country is boosting its ballistic missile capability, which can be used to carry weapons of mass destruction, represent a grave threat to our country ... and should not be tolerated,” it said. “We cannot rule out the possibility that North Korea will achieve the miniaturization of its nuclear weapons to a size mountable on missiles in a relatively short span of time and related moves should be monitored closely.”