North Korea's ability to produce missiles that can reach any part of Japan is a cause for extreme concern and an issue that directly affects Japan's security, the Defense Agency said in its 1999 white paper released Tuesday.

The agency's annual report urges that Japan beef up its intelligence-gathering capability and countermeasures while promoting coordination with the United States, South Korea and other countries concerned about the matter.

In a special chapter added to this year's report, the agency re-examined North Korea's launch of a Taepodong-type ballistic missile last August as well as the Self-Defense Forces' chase of two North Korean spy ships that entered Japanese waters in March.

"These incidents are new challenges from outside" against Japan's security, said Councilor Nobumasa Ota, who briefed reporters prior to Tuesday's submission of the white paper to a Cabinet meeting.

The annual report welcomes the government's decision to introduce four information-gathering satellites by fiscal 2002, a reaction to the Taepodong test. Hosei Norota, director general of the Defense Agency, submitted the white paper to Tuesday's Cabinet meeting.

The report says North Korea is likely to have completed development of 1,300-km range Rodong missiles and deployed them to put most of Japan within shooting range.

The Scud-based Rodong, however, does not have the accuracy necessary to execute pinpoint attacks on certain facilities, the paper notes. The Taepodong-1, used in last August's missile launch, combines a Rodong as its first stage and a Scud as its second stage, it says, asserting that the liquid-fuel Taepodong-1's range is more than 1,500 km.

Now, North Korea is developing a Taepodong-2 missile, an advanced two-stage missile that uses a newly designed booster as the first stage and a Rodong as the second stage and has an estimated range of 3,500 to 6,000 km, the report says.

"North Korea's missile development, coupled with the suspicion over its nuclear weapons development, is a serious concern which is becoming a destabilizing factor not only for the Asia-Pacific region but for the entire world," the white paper says.

Regarding military situations in other countries, the report points out that the United States sees the development of Ballistic Missile Defense systems as one of its most urgent defense tasks, partly due to concern that North Korea will soon obtain the capability to produce ICBMs that can reach the U.S. mainland.

Japan this year will officially begin a joint research project with the U.S. to develop the sea-based component of the Washington-led BMD program.

The paper maintains that the future course of the Russian military is unclear and should therefore be carefully watched, citing the nation's shaky political and economic state, a delay in military realignment and the Russia-NATO friction showcased by NATO's airstrikes on Yugoslavia.

China meanwhile is attempting to convert its military power from quantity-oriented to quality-oriented, the paper says, adding Japan must continue to watch the progress of Chinese military's modernization and the expansion of the sphere of China's sea activities.

Touching on domestic issues, the report urges passage of emergency defense legislation, which would exempt SDF members from some existing laws to allow them "legally" to cope with emergencies should Japan come under direct military attack.