On Sunday, 120-thousand Japanese gathered outside the Diet to protest what they denounced as war legislation. On Monday, the defense ministry submitted a proposed budget that asks for a fourth consecutive annual increase...details, from Neal Conan in today’s Pacific News Minute.
Public opinion polls show the security bills to be deeply unpopular, and Sunday's rally in Tokyo was by far the largest yet in a series of protests that started earlier this year. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe wants to re-interpret article nine of Japan's pacifist post war constitution, which limits the use of force to self-defense. If enacted, the bills would allow Japanese troops to fight in response to attacks on its vital interests. Its oil supply lines for example, or in support of embattled allies…universally believed to mean the United States. The measures were approved by the lower house in July, and are expected to pass the upper house sometime this month.
The record defense budget request adds up to 42-billion dollars for the next fiscal year, up 2.2%...and has the same rationale as the security bills, the growing strength of China. While the dispute over uninhabited islands in the East China Sea is currently on hold, China will hold a massive military parade this week to mark the end of the Second World War, a celebration many in Japan will view as both triumphalist and anti-Japanese.
One other item...last week, Japan launched the second in a new class of helicopter carriers, the largest warships it's built since World War Two. The 24-thousand ton Kaga bears the same name as an aircraft carrier involved in the attack on Pearl Harbor and later sunk at the Battle of Midway.
