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Scholars and news media in Indonesia, Thailand, Japan and other countries criticized the claim of "China threat" and preaching for the necessity of security bills in Japan's defence white paper for 2015 approved by the Japanese cabinet on Tuesday. They noted the revival of militarist sentiments in Japan is actually a real threat to the international community.
Bambang Suryono, president of the Jakarta-based Nanyang ASEAN Foundation, said that Japan's preaching for "China threat" is totally a move of "the wicked to complain," and that the rise of the militarist forces inside Japan is a real threat to the international community.
Suryono said that the white paper's playing up of China's construction activities on the Nansha islands and reefs is also groundless. China's construction activities on its own islands are to better fulfill its responsibilities and commitments such as maritime searches and rescues, which will be beneficial to rescue operations in the region, said Suryono.
Instead, the facts that Japan and the Philippines stage military maneuvers in the South China Sea, and the United States and Japan jointly intervene in the South China Sea affairs are the top factors that affect the peace in the South China Sea, said Suryono
Preaching the "China threat" theory in the defence white paper is a tool of the Abe-administration to justify the new security bills, said Hiroshi Tanaka, a honorary professor of Japan's Hitotsubashi University.
For Japan, the key is to find a way to peacefully co-exist with China, the professor said, adding that hyping "China threat" is not a right choice.
By highlighting the "China threat" and the severe security situation surrounding Japan, the white paper aims to justify the necessity of the new security bills, said Kyodo News.
Simply repeating the content of the security bills in the white paper cannot help remove the Japanese people's doubts, and the explanation that the right to collective self-defense conforms to the constitution is not convincing, it noted.
According to Qian Feng, vice president of Thailand's newspaper Asian Daily, Japan's new defense white paper bears two intentions: Firstly, to be consistent with the new security bills in order to find excuses for Japan to exercise the right to collective defense and send troops abroad; Secondly, to interfere in the South China Sea affairs which has nothing to do with Japan, by taking part in the U.S. patrolling in the South China Sea. "That's a dangerous tendency meriting close attention from neighboring countries," he noted.
The South Korean Foreign Ministry also lodged protest over Japan's defense white paper. It said Tuesday in a statement that Japan's renewed claim to the Dokdo Island (which Japan calls Takeshima) in the defense white paper was absurd.
It is tantamount to "denying Japan's past aggression against the Korean Peninsula and thus showing to the international community that it has not correctly recognized history," the statement said.
