Japan Press Weekly

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2024 April 17 - 23 [POLITICS]

Shii reveals US military may urge Japan to secede some of its sovereignty for seamless integration between two nations’ forces

Japanese Communist Party representative Shii Kazuo on April 22 at a House of Representatives Budget Committee meeting pointed out the possibility that Japan may be forced to give up its sovereignty under the Kishida government’s move toward a “seamless integration” between the Self-Defense Forces and the U.S. military

The “seamless integration” between the two forces was announced in the Japan-U.S. leaders’ joint statement which was issued ten days earlier.

Shii pointed out that as a basic policy, the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command in its “Integrated Air Missile Defense (IAMD) vision 2028” cited the “ability to seamlessly integrate with high-end allies.”

In addition, Shii referred to an article regarding the “IAMD Vision 2028” submitted by U.S. Air Force Col. Lynn Savage, who heads the Pacific IAMD Center, to the Air Force Journal of Indo-Pacific Affairs.

The article mentioned the need to include all U.S. allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific region in the U.S. Department of Defense’s Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2) system which is designed to integrate information across all domains, including the electromagnetic spectrum for faster decision making in military operations. The article also states that “a whole-of-government approach” to getting U.S. allies to “secede a piece of their sovereignty” is necessary.

Shii stressed, “This is the ‘seamless integration’ demanded by the U.S. military. What the Kishida government intends to do is to yield Japan’s sovereignty to meet U.S. demands, which is obviously unconstitutional.”