TOKYO: Japan is securely poised to enter 2005 as a decisive power in global politics but analysts say the new path poses a lingering dilemma for the Japanese public.

"Like it or not, Japan is working closely on the heels of the US anti-terrorism global strategy that will also boost its own military after sixty years of post-war pacifism," said Robert Scalapino, a veteran American Asia expert visiting Tokyo last week.

Last week, Japan also unveiled the final steps to a new National Defence Programme that cites China and North Korea as threats to its national security and calls for a "multifunctional and flexible capability" by its troops to address new issues like terrorism threats and missile attacks.

In addition to increasing the number of its Self Defence Forces (SDF) to 148,000 from 145,000, the government has announced plans to jointly develop a highly potent two-tier missile programme with the United States, a move that will make Japan the most sophisticated military technology power in Asia.

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi also extended the deployment, by another year, of 600 SDFs in US-occupied Iraq - in the run-up to the Middle Eastern country's election in January.

"From a deterrent to a responsive force - that is the future of our defence posture, said Japan's Defence Agency chief Yoshinori Ono. Ono is spearheading a five-year defence build-up plan for fiscal 2005 to 2009 that will ease Japan's arms exports and make peacekeeping activities its main mission.

Necessary legal changes for this purpose are expected to be submitted and passed in the Diet by the end of January. On the new defence menu are also discussions to change the current constitution to permit military activity abroad, a step that will also pave the way for Japan to gain a permanent seat in the UN's powerful Security Council.

Critics have raised concerns about the slow erosion of the pacifist society Japan has built since it adopted its current war-renouncing constitution after World War II. Some of Japan's neighbours, who suffered under Tokyo's expansionist policies in the first half of the last century, have expressed unease.

But Koizumi's cabinet sought to allay such fears, saying Japan's military would not go on the offensive. "Our country, under our constitution, will adhere exclusively to self-defence," said a cabinet report. "Following our policy of not becoming a major military power that would pose a threat to other countries, we will secure civilian control."

At the same time Japan's traditional diplomatic tool, its Overseas Development Assistance or ODA, is sliding further. It has taken a dive by about four per cent to 7.5 billion dollars in 2005 according to an announcement by the Finance Ministry. This is Japan's lowest level of overseas aid in 16 years.

The prospect of a new Japan is no longer restricted to its traditional cheque-book diplomacy. Tokyo wants to portray a new image - one that indicates that it is side-by-side with the world's only superpower, the United States. And this is a drastic new development not only in Asia but also on the domestic front.

"The new defence policy leaves people with a vague feeling of anxiety," said an editorial of the 'Japan Times' on Dec 12, pointing to the possibility of a major military build-up to meet every security threat to Japan.

Critics are also scathing when they point out that every security decision taken by Japan recently represents a de facto undermining of its peace constitution, as well as a military build-up and integration with the US administration of President George W. Bush.

By and large, Japanese public opinion is divided, on the country's new defence policy and the presence of its SDFs in Iraq. Junji Banno, a historian is worried that the Koizumi government has played up the threats to Japanese security in order to obscure the harsher consequences of the new defence programme such as the possibility of the death of a Japanese SDF in Iraq or a bomb blast in Tokyo.

But Mitsue Ogi, 26, a graduate student is of a different opinion. She said she watched the second dispatch of Japan's SDFs to Iraq this month with "mixed feelings". She says she was torn between helping to curtail global terrorism and the high value she places on Japan being a "peaceful country that respects other cultures." -Dawn/The Inter Press News Service.