JAPAN SHOULD SET PROPER COURSE

 

Pyongyang, September 2 (KCNA) -- Kim Sol Hwa, a researcher of the Institute for Japan Studies of the DPRK Foreign Ministry, issued the following article "Japan should set proper course" on September 2:

Japan's dangerous arms buildup has gone beyond the limit that can no longer be overlooked.

It can be illustrated by the fact that the U.S. recently approved the sale of air-to-surface missiles and related equipment at the repeated request of Japan.

Japan is planning to purchase 50 missiles at the cost of 104 million U.S. dollars. The above-said missile is a long-range cruise missile (JASSM) with a range of about 900 km.

Not content with this, Japan is speeding up the development of its domestic long-range missiles.

For instance, it has stepped up the mass-production of high-speed gliding projectiles and the development of hypersonic guided missiles while extending the range of type 12 surface-to-ship guided missile, a cruise missile delivered to the ground "Self-Defense Force", to over 1 000 km and remodeling it to ensure its operation in the air and the sea, to say nothing of ground.

It is an open secret that Japan has steadily renewed and expanded its military muscle into attack type by throwing off the principle of "exclusive defense" under which Japan is constitutionally bound to give up war and has no right of war potentials and belligerency and it is allowed only to possess "the minimum defense capability" if necessary.

Japan is working hard to secure the capability for preemptive attack by massively deploying long-range missiles with the extended range and thus turn it into a country capable of fighting a war. Such behavior reminds one of the eve of the Pacific War in the past.

It is by no means fortuitous that a Japanese media deplored that Japan has come again to the "point of irrevocable return" for war or may have gone beyond it, saying that "2023 would be the eve of a new war".

All facts clearly show that Japan is buckling down to the implementation of the security strategy, the undisguised doctrine of preemptive attack and war guidelines revised at the end of last year, and that the engine of "reinvasion ship" built by Japanese militarism started operation.

What merits a serious attention is that the U.S., chieftain of aggression and war, systematically brings the "spearhead" of reinvasion to the hands of Japan keen on turning itself into a military giant, with a view to using Japan as a shock brigade for carrying out its Indo-Pacific strategy.

While praising Japan's access to "counterattack capability" as the possession of "ability for bolstering up its deterrence in the region", the U.S. revealed its attempt to strengthen the military alliance on the basis of it. And it is mulling introducing 400 Tomahawk long-range cruise missiles with a range of about 1 600 km into Japan. There are much more examples showing its sordid intention to use Japan as the cannon-fodder for a war of aggression.

Japan, which completely removed the veil of a "pacifist state" with the backing of the U.S., is seeking to revive the "Imperial Japan" which dreamed of dominating the world after occupying the vast Asian continent in the past. This is no more than a daydream.

Those countries in the region which Japan seeks to put in the firing range of long-range missiles are not the weak countries a century ago when Japan ran amuck, putting them on the altar for realizing the ambition for the "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere".

Japan should prudently decide the course of its choice whether to run headlong into the abyss of ruin through its absurd arms buildup or to establish good-neighborly relations with neighboring countries and co-exist peacefully.

If Japan raises the anchor of the "reinvasion ship", despite the repeated warnings of the regional community, it will be a matter of time for it to face a wreck.