Just days after a Camp David summit between Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and U.S. President George W. Bush, Japanese and U.S. foreign and defense ministers held top-level security talks in Washington and agreed to pursue "alliance transformation." The joint statement issued by Foreign Minister Taro Aso, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Defense Minister Fumio Kyuma and U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates covers a vast range of security objectives.
They include sharing missile defense and other military information, a comprehensive pact to protect military information (to be signed in the future), strengthening the two countries' relationship with Australia and India, deepening cooperation between Japan and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and accelerating the realignment of the U.S. forces in Japan, especially in Okinawa. The statement points to a further integration of Japanese and U.S. military capabilities, and a departure from Japan's traditional security policy of sole cooperation with the United States under the bilateral security treaty.
Given Mr. Abe's eagerness to revise the Constitution and readiness to change the constitution-based long-standing government position that Japan cannot exercise the right to collective defense, citizens will likely fear that Japan's ties with the U.S. are becoming too military oriented and that the Self-Defense Forces may circumvent constitutional restraints in expanding their overseas activities. At the very least, the government must fully explain to the people and the Diet what it intends to do under the joint statement and what effects and changes these actions will bring to Japan.