Interview: Japan's controversial security bills threat to security in Asia, Cambodian scholars

Scholars in Cambodia have expressed fears that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe-initiated security bills that have been opposed by most Japanese citizens will cause insecurity, fear, and distrust among countries in Asia.

Their comments were made after Japan's ruling coalition led by Abe rammed through a series of the security bills in the all- powerful lower house on Thursday.

The bills will give the Japan's Self-Defense Forces (SDF) greater role worldwide. Under the legislation, the SDF could be dispatched overseas to engage in armed conflicts and help defend its friends and allies even if Japan itself is not attacked, or to exercise the right to collective self-defense.

Joseph Matthews, director of International Cooperation Department at the Phnom Penh-based Asia Euro University, said the consequences of the passage of this legislation will be far- reaching and dangerous.

"The enactment of these bills will trigger insecurity, fear and distrust among all Asian countries, especially in the ASEAN ( Association of Southeast Asian Nations) bloc," Matthews told Xinhua.

"This action will also lead to an arms race among immediate neighbors of Japan such as the Republic of Korea and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). All the efforts to contain the DPRK Nuclear Program will go down the drain because of Japan's latest move," he said.

"The ramification of this enactment will be widespread, from economic to political and from diplomatic to strategic," he added.

Matthews said that Abe's security bills are an open violation of Article 9 of the country's post World War II constitution, which barred Japan from becoming a military power but only to pursue rearmament of Japanese forces for self-defense purposes.

He said the bills were made to suit the inspiration to Japanese nationalists who are not willing to accept the rise of China as an economic power in the world.

"These nationalist elements in Japan depict China's economic success as a major threat to Japanese society, which is absolutely wrong and fabricated by these war-mongers," he said.

Chheang Vannarith, co-founder and chairman of the Cambodian Institute for Strategic Studies, said Japan is investing more in the security and defense sector to counterweight the rise of China.

"Japan's revised security policy primarily aims to put China in check, but it may lead to deepen strategic mistrust between Japan and China and other Asian neighbors which still remember the past atrocities committed by Japan during World War II," he said.

"ASEAN in general welcomes Japan's active security role but Japan should concentrate on human security," Vannarith said.

Pou Sothirak, executive director of the Cambodian Institute for Peace and Cooperation, said Abe's new security bills were made against the backdrop of Japan's concerns about the China's rise, its impact on stability in Southeast and East Asia, and the need for protecting Japan's national interests.

"Although Japan still rely largely on U.S.-Japan alliance for the sake of keeping this region stable, it has come to the realization that it has to count on itself more independently when it comes to defend Japanese fundamental national interests including its territorial dispute with China in the East China Sea, " Sothirak said.

He said that in the shifting of power dynamics, Japan cannot afford to completely rely on external power to help maintain and protect its own fundamental national interests.

"The most challenging task for Abe's administration regarding the security legislation is how to overcome existing legal, political and other institutional limitations domestically and to overcome the trust deficit arising from historical issues externally," he said.

Sothirak said the bills reflected the motivation of the Japanese government to undertake a more active role in checking what it perceived as Chinese influence in East Asia and Southeast Asia's multilateral forums.

"Such involvement adds greater incentive for Japan to send clearer signal to the whole world that Japan indeed represents a highly significant power as well when it comes to the emergence of a new strategic and diplomatic balance that shapes the political- security environment within Southeast Asia and East Asia," he said.

However, there are concerns that Japan might return to become a military power again which critics say could threaten peace and stability of the region "if Japan is allowed to pursue this path unchecked," he added. Endi