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KCNA memorandum discloses Japan's moves for overseas expansion

KCNA

    Pyongyang, June 5 (KCNA) -- The Korean Central News Agency issued a memorandum today denouncing Japan's moves for overseas expansion as it is emerging as one of the two most dangerous war forces in the world and keen on repeating its past aggression to establish an unchallenged domination over Asia. The four-part memorandum says:
    The Japanese reactionaries have paid primary attention to finally rounding off the legal preparations for full-scale overseas expansion while putting spurs to establishing a war-time system as an escalation of Japan's legal activities conducted over the past decade to step up rearmament and the "self-defence forces'" expansion overseas.
    On May 15 the House of Representatives of Japan passed three bills on emergency, bills bellicose in their nature and contents.
    They were a "bill to cope with an armed attack," "a draft amendment to the law of 'self-defence forces'", and "a draft amendment to the law on setting up a security council."
    They call for legalizing the SDFs' participation in a war of overseas aggression in case of "emergency" and mobilizing civilians for a war.
    The carriage of those bills at the diet made it possible for the Japanese reactionaries to set the SDF in motion and fully mobilize human and material potentials in the country any time under such indirect pretext as "danger of an armed attack" just as they did during the second world war and carry out military intervention and a war of aggression against any country.
    A strong ideological and political foundation is in the making in Japan to repeat its past aggression.
    On January 14 this year Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi visited the "Yasukuni Shrine" and on April 22 182 Japanese politicians including 74 dietmen followed suit.
    The shrine is symbolic of Japanese militarism and showcases the Japanese imperialists' history of aggression.
    For this reason in the past Japanese officials paid secret visits to it in the private capacity or unofficially. But recent years witnessed official visits of groups of politicians to the shrine, heedless to the public opinion.
    The "people's council for defending Japan," the "fellowship society in the native land", the "political federation, house of growth" and hundreds of other ultra-right reactionary organizations of various types in Japan are widely disseminating the idea of militarism and embellishing their dark past by tampering with the history textbooks at the tacit connivance of the authorities.
    Japan comes second next to the U.S. in military spending as it has pushed forward in real earnest its moves to emerge a military giant and realize nuclear weaponization.
    It is said that Japan would spend 25.16 trillion yen as military spending for the 2001-2005 mid-term arms buildup plan. The ground "self-defence force" was founded with small strength in 1954 under the name of "defence". But it has already grown to be a huge force capable of carrying out an actual war as it has more than ten divisions, over 1,080 tanks, more than 980 armored cars, over 1,850 mortars and at least 3,230 recoiless guns and other powerful war means.
    The maritime "self-defence force," in particular, has more than 45,800 troops and more than 160 modern warships including aegis ships, submarines and large transport ships.
    The air "self-defence force" possesses over 510 operational planes including 213 f-15 fighters. The modern three services of the SDF indicate that the Japanese forces have been converted into perfect regular forces for overseas aggression, a complete switchover from its former policy of exclusive self-defence.
    Japan has stockpiled 38 tons of plutonium and it is said that it would possess 110 tons of that substance by 2020. It is Japan's aim to stockpile 400 tons of plutonium in the future enough to produce 60,000 nuclear weapons.
    In August 2001 Japan launched large carrier rocket h-2a no. 1 and on February 4 last year it put H-2A no. 2 into space. These rockets are called "perfect prototype rockets" as they can be converted into inter-continental ballistic missiles any time necessary.
    On March 28 this year Japan sent two spy satellites into space for the first time in its history by using a large carrier rocket H-2A. It plans to launch two more spy satellites this summer and possess 8 spy satellites altogether by 2009.
    Japan's nuclear weaponization is practically close to completion as it is capable of manufacturing thousands of nuclear bombs in a few months, perfected their carriage means and is equipped with independent spy and guide systems.
    Japan has dispatched its troops overseas by actively joining un "peace-keeping forces" on the strength of the law on overseas troop dispatch.
    Over the last decade from 1992 to 2002 Japan has dispatched a total of 3,987 SDF troops to different parts of the world on 15 occasions. As of December 2002 after the "September 11 incident," in particular, the Japanese maritime SDF sent a total of 20 warships and at least 4,200 crewmen to the Indian ocean to support the U.S. under a "special measure law on combating terrorism."
    Since the 1980s Japan has sent warships of the SDF to the U.S.-led RIMPAC joint military exercises 12 times.
    The SDF's participation in those exercises gained in scope every year. The RIMPAC 2002 naval exercises that started on June 25 last year involved about 1,120 troops, five warships and eight anti-submarine patrol planes and other powerful combat means. even missiles were test-fired there.
    The DPRK is the principal target of Japan's overseas aggression.
    It is the view of the Japanese reactionaries that they can never realise their ambition for continental aggression unless they put the DPRK, the gateway to the Asian continent, under their control. But the DPRK stands imposingly as a bulwark of socialism.
    It is for this reason that Japan has escalated as never before its moves to stifle the DPRK, raising a hue and cry over "nuclear issue," "missile issue" and "issue of abduction."
    The Japanese government made a switchover in the deployment of forces from its former strategy focusing on the northern region, the strategy targeted against the former Soviet Union, to the strategy focusing on western Japan. The elite units of the SDF have thus been massively deployed in western Japan facing Korea and their target is the DPRK.
    The U.S. and Japan have already worked out a "mutual cooperation plan" under the "Japan-U.S. defence cooperation guidelines."
    The "mutual cooperation plan" is a war scenario for the reinvasion of Korea as it specifies the joint military actions to be taken by the U.S. forces and the SDF in case of "emergency in the areas surrounding Japan."
    These are in gross violation of the spirit of the DPRK-Japan Pyongyang Declaration in which both sides committed themselves to refrain from doing any act of threatening the other. All the facts go to clearly prove that Japan still considers the DPRK to be an enemy and is watching for every chance to stage a comeback to Korea, far from redeeming its past.
    The Korean people fell victim to the Japanese imperialists' aggression in the past and they have now become the primary target of Japan's attack. Therefore, they are now fully ready to foil Japan's ambition for reinvasion in a do-or-die spirit.
    If Japan infringes upon even an inch of our inviolable territory, the people and the People's Army of the DPRK will never miss the chance but mercilessly retaliate against the aggressors a thousand times so as to vent their pent-up wrath and defend peace and security in Asia and the rest of the world.