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2 'Axis of democracy' flexes its military
muscles By Hisane Masaki
TOKYO - Will their love be requited? Japan
and the United States have been ardently courting
India recently for what appears to be an emerging
"axis of democracy" in Asia, also involving
Australia, primarily aimed at keeping China in
check.
In a significant sign that these
efforts by Japan and the US may be bearing fruit,
the two countries and India are preparing to hold
their first-ever joint military exercise in the
Pacific Ocean near Japan. Some Japanese media have
reported that it will be held in
early April for about a week.
Although no official announcement of the
military drill has been made, and the details,
including the exact period and number of troops
participating, remain unknown, it is expected to
focus on maritime security and involve rescue
operations during large-scale natural disasters,
such as earthquakes and tsunamis.
It is
also expected to involve communication training,
including code-breaking. Japan's maritime
Self-Defense Force (SDF) is expected to dispatch
destroyers and patrol helicopters. While the drill
is widely seen as a move largely aimed at China,
Tokyo will probably take pains to dismiss the
view, especially as this is an important time in
its relations with Beijing.
Chinese Prime
Minister Wen Jiabao is scheduled to make a trip to
Japan in mid-April, the first by a top-level
Chinese leader in seven years. During his talks
with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Wen is expected to
invite the Japanese leader to visit Beijing this
autumn to keep up the pace of top-level contacts.
During the past few years of Junichiro
Koizumi's premiership, China shunned top-level
contacts with Japan, even during international
conferences in third countries. China - and also
South Korea - harshly criticized Koizumi's
official pilgrimages to the Yasukuni Shrine as
glorifying Japan's militaristic past. But
Sino-Japanese relations have been warming since
Abe succeeded Koizumi last September and made a
fence-mending trip to Beijing - and also to Seoul
- soon afterward.
Japan invited Indian
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh last December, his
first Tokyo trip since taking office, apparently
in hopes of strengthening ties with the South
Asian country as a counterbalance to the growing
influence of China in Asia. Abe and Singh agreed
to forge a "strategic global partnership" between
Japan and India and boost bilateral defense
exchanges.
Earlier, in May last year,
Japanese and Indian defense chiefs agreed to
implement reciprocal visits by naval ships.
Personnel exchanges are also increasing between
the two countries' militaries. Top officers from
the ground, air and maritime SDFs have already
visited India for talks with their counterparts.
The landmark joint military exercise will
come less than a month after the signing of an
historic pact between Japan and Australia in
mid-March to upgrade their security ties. It is
only Japan's second bilateral security agreement
since the end of World War II, with the first
being the Japan-US security treaty dating back
about half a century.
Japan and Australia
are both staunch US allies. Despite strong
domestic criticism, both Tokyo and Canberra have
steadfastly supported the US-led war in Iraq by
dispatching troops there. The Japan-Australia
security pact was signed about three weeks after
US Vice President Dick Cheney made an Asian tour
in late February.
Unlike his previous
Asian tour three years ago, which took him to
Japan, China and South Korea, Cheney visited only
Japan and Australia, underscoring the particular
importance Washington attaches to strengthened
ties with Tokyo and Canberra.
Washington
has thrown its weight behind closer security ties
between Tokyo and Canberra. With relations between
the US and South Korea deteriorating in recent
years, the Bush administration is seen by some as
shifting the focus of its security policy in Asia
away from ties with Japan and South Korea and
toward those with Japan and Australia.
Cooperation between Japanese and
Australian forces has also increased in recent
years. Australian troops have been in charge of
maintaining security in the southern Iraqi city of
Samawah, where some 600 Japanese ground SDF
personnel were stationed on a non-combat mission
until last summer.
Australian forces,
along with American ones, also cooperated with the
SDF in relief operations following the Indian
Ocean tsunami triggered by a massive earthquake
that struck off Sumatra, Indonesia, in December
2004. But Japan and Australia have yet to conduct
a joint military drill, even for disaster relief.
The Japan-Australia pact calls for closer
cooperation on terrorism, preventing the
proliferation of weapons of mass destruction,
disaster relief and peacekeeping. It specifically
calls for close
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