Abe to seek broader support for security laws

TOKYO — After winning support from several countries for Japan’s new security laws during UN meetings in New York last week, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe appears poised to rally broader international backing for what has become the nation’s major postwar security policy shift in a series of leaders’ summits in the coming weeks.

Broad international support is seen as key as Mr Abe tries to persuade sceptics at home — and in China and South Korea — about the contentious laws that enable Japan’s Self-Defence Forces to fight overseas for the first time since World War II.

While he says the laws will beef up Japan’s alliance with the United States and boost defence cooperation with friendly nations such as Australia in the face of an increasingly assertive China and a nuclear-armed North Korea, critics argue they violate Japan’s war-renouncing Constitution and could drag Japan into US-led conflicts.

Mr Abe says the laws are aimed at preventing wars. He says he will step up efforts to explain the laws “courteously and tenaciously” to win better public understanding.

And the Premier is expected to do the same with foreign leaders when he attends a trilateral summit with China and South Korea possibly in late October, as well as three international conferences in November.

“Difficult issues exist between neighbouring countries, and I think that’s why leaders should have talks.” Mr Abe said at a news conference on Sept 25.

Japan’s new security laws enable the SDF to defend the US and other friendly nations under armed attack by exercising the right to collective self-defence — but only under strict conditions such as Japan’s survival coming under threat.

They also expand logistics support for the militaries of the US and other countries, and for participation in UN peacekeeping operations.

In New York, the leaders of Kenya, Qatar and Bangladesh, as well as US Vice- President Joe Biden, told Mr Abe that they welcome the laws as part of the Japanese Prime Minister’s policy of proactive contribution to peace based on the principle of international cooperation, according to the Japanese Foreign Ministry.

But Mr Abe did not meet Chinese President Xi Jinping while they were in New York. In her address to the UN General Assembly on Sept 28, South Korean President Park Geun Hye urged Japan to ensure transparency in managing the laws.

China and South Korea, which suffered Japan’s aggression during and before WWII, have expressed concern about an expanded role of the SDF abroad under the laws.

China, in particular, appears loath to see a firmer Japan-US alliance as it would hinder its perceived attempt to gain more space in the region, especially in and over the East and South China seas, where Beijing is engaged in territorial rows with Japan and South-east Asian nations.

“I think Mr Abe is doing well in strengthening (the deterrent effect from) the Japan-US alliance. The security legislation should be a plus for South-east Asian nations as well, because it bolsters the US (military) presence in the region,” said Mr Tsuneo Watanabe, director for policy research at the Tokyo Foundation think tank.

“But it is also important that Japan and the US step up engagement with China in a way to guide it into fine-tuning its assertive and aggressive posture toward regional cooperation,” he added.

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