Japan Press Weekly

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2013 November 13 - 19 [SDF]

Gov’t should end permanent use of SDF’s overseas base: JCP Inoue

Japanese Communist Party member of the House of Councilors Inoue Satoshi on November 18 at a House special committee meeting argued that the government should stop maintaining a permanent military base abroad under the guise of anti-piracy measures.

Inoue at the meeting on national security took up the Self-Defense Forces’ overseas mission which has been carried out in the name of countering piracy in sea areas off the coast of Somalia in Africa.

Pointing to the SDF base for the anti-piracy mission which was set up in Somalia’s neighboring country Djibouti in 2011, Inoue said that the base has been playing a role as a “permanent foreign base”.

Criticizing the government for intending to hold the base permanently, he said that such intent goes against the international trend in which many countries are moving to remove their foreign installations while only the United States, Britain, France, and Russia keep their military facilities abroad. In addition, the United States is the only nation that maintains a huge global base network, Inoue pointed out.

The JCP lawmaker then raised the issue that in December as part of the anti-piracy mission the SDF will join a “zone-defense” in which the SDF will share with the multinational force sea areas to combat pirates.

He criticized this move as an example of the expansion of the SDF’s overseas military operations which will be incorporated in a national security strategy scheduled to be compiled by the end of this year at the planned national security council.