JCP criticizes defense chief for advocating collective self-defense rights

The Japanese Communist Party criticized Defense Agency Director General Nakatani Gen for publicly advocating that the Constitution should be changed to allow Japan to exercise the right to collective self-defense.

At a House of Councilors Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defense meeting on July 9, JCP Yoshioka Yoshinori said he found this on Nakatani's website. "This remark is contrary to a state minister's obligation to respect and defend the Constitution," Yoshioka said.

Nakatani, however, insisted that the Koizumi Cabinet's official view is that a study can be made about the right to collective self-defense and the Constitution.

He then stated defiantly that Japan should have the right to collective self-defense after amending the Constitution.

Nakatani in his speech at the Defense Academy graduation ceremony on March 24 said that the defense of Japan doesn't mean only counterattacks against direct attacks on Japan.

On this, Yoshioka strongly criticized Nakatani for arguing for a change of the "exclusively defensive-defense" called for in the Self-Defense Forces Law. (end)