China is expected to be described as a military threat in a Japanese defense review which could form the basis of Tokyo's long-term defense plan, reports said yesterday.
A private advisory panel to Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi plans to mention, in a report to be completed by the end of this month, the threat stemming from China's military build-up and fears of a military clash with Taiwan, the Nihon Keizai newspaper said.
Wary of raising the hackles of its powerful neighbor, up to now Japan has not so far explicitly referred to nuclear-armed China as a military threat in any published official document.
Pointing to a steady rise in China's defense budgets, the advisory panel is considering expressing "caution" about chances of a military conflict in the Taiwan Strait, the paper said.
But China's lavishly funded military build-up has been seen as one of the reasons for a reduction in Tokyo's official development aid to Beijing in recent years.
The report from the advisory panel is expected to be reflected in a new long-term defense plan to be completed by the government by the end of this year, the leading business daily said.
The unprecedentedly frank description risks heightening further the diplomatic tension between Beijing and Tokyo.
Beijing's plan to develop natural gas near the demarcation line of Japan's exclusive economic zone in the East China Sea has also added to the bilateral strain.
The current defense plan avoids mentioning China specifically as a military threat although it refers to "large-scale military powers," including those with nuclear capability, in the region surrounding Japan.
"Many countries are inclined to expand and modernize military capabilities on the strength of economic development and other factors," it says, citing the Russian far east and the Korean Peninsula.
The panel warned Japan should cope with "each and every instance" of China's military expansion, the report added.
The panel's report is expected to highlight increases in China's military spending and strategy statements, which point to the country's expansionist policy, the daily said.
Japan's financial aid to China has been under fire from some members of the Liberal Democratic Party in view of Beijing's huge spending on its military buildup, manned spacecraft program and its own aid to neighboring countries.
Japan's subtle shift from its cautious approach to China reflects the chill in their bilateral relations on one hand and the strengthening of Tokyo's alliance with Washington on the other, the daily said.
The panel's report is expected to underline the maintenance of a "deterrence based on the Japan-US alliance," the daily said.
China's rising nationalist sentiment, coupled with its authoritarian political system and increasingly powerful military, is viewed as a source of grave concern by many security analysts in Japan, which is one of Asia's oldest democracies.
Meanwhile, Chinese observers point to Japan's dismal humanitarian record during World War II as a reason for keeping Japan's power in check.
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