Gov't to postpone adoption of new defense outline to next year+

TOKYO, Oct. 10 Kyodo -
The Japanese government is set to postpone the adoption of a defense policy
guideline for fiscal 2010-2014 and a medium-term defense buildup plan based on
the guideline until next year, government sources said Saturday.
As the government's hands are full with the review of a fiscal 2010 budget plan
compiled by the previous government and the reexamination of the planned
realignment of U.S. forces in Japan, the sources said the government has
reached an agreement to postpone the adoption of the defense guideline by one
year from the initially targeted deadline of the end of this year.
Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama and his Cabinet are reexamining various
diplomatic and security policies, such as the planned transfer of the U.S.
Marine Corps' Futemma Air Station in Ginowan to the shore of Camp Schwab in
Nago, both in Okinawa Prefecture, and Japan's ongoing refueling mission in
support of U.S.-led antiterrorism operations in and around Afghanistan, ahead
of Barack Obama's first visit to Japan as U.S. president next month.
The government led by Hatoyama's Democratic Party of Japan is also overhauling
budget requests from ministries for the next fiscal year that were approved
under the previous government led by Prime Minister Taro Aso's Liberal
Democratic Party.
Until the defense buildup plan specifying necessary expenditures based on the
new five-year policy outline is adopted, the government will come up with a
temporary plan and seek Cabinet approval to take budgetary measures, the
sources said.
Hatoyama ordered Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa to adopt the guideline
within this year shortly after the inauguration of his government and the
government was planning to form a Cabinet committee to study the outline, which
will replace the current one adopted in December 2004.
However, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirofumi Hirano told Kitazawa on Friday that
more time is required to discuss the outline as the DPJ has yet to hold
sufficient discussions on security issues with its coalition partners -- the
Social Democratic Party and the People's New Party.
The outline, which sets out Japan's long-term defense policies, was first
adopted in 1976 and was amended in 1995 and 2004. The medium-term buildup plan,
which discloses troop numbers and expenditure levels related to defense
matters, is compiled in accordance with the outline as part of efforts to
increase the transparency of the country's defense capabilities.
The current defense policy guideline covering the five-year period through
fiscal 2009, which ends next March, stipulates the necessity for Japan to build
more multifunctional, flexible and practical defense capabilities in response
to new threats such as terrorism and weapons of mass destruction.
It also states that the guideline was to be amended by December 2009.
==Kyodo
2009-10-10 22:25:51