和訳お願いします
Consider establishing SDF garrison
on Senkaku isles: LDP's Ishihara
Washington
AFP-JIJI
Japan should consider deploying Self-Defense Forces units to
islands it controls but claimed by
China to counter Beijing's growing assertiveness, a liberal Democratic Party leader said while on
a visit to the United States.
Nobuteru Ishihara, sometimes
seen as a future prime minister
if the LDP returns to power, said
Monday that Tokyo should also
look more broadly at stepping up
defense spending in the face of a
rising China.
Japan officially regards the
Senkaku Islands as under the
jurisdiction of Okinawa. Beijing claims the islets, which are
known in China as Diaoyu. Last
year a run-in involving a Chinese
trawler and Japan Coast Guard
boats trying to shoo the vessel
away from the area led to a further souring of relations.
Ishihara, secretary general of the conservative party, said
Japan should move "quickly" to put the islands under public
Ishihara,
of the conservative party, said
Japan should move "quickly"
to put the islands under public
control. Tokyo considers most of
the area to be privately owned by
Japanese citizens.
"Following this change, a port
should be developed where fishing boats may take refuge," Ishihara said at the Hudson Institute,
a Washington think tank.
"I further believe that we must
seriously begin contemplating
the establishment of a permanent post for the Self-Defense
Forces in this area" he said.
Japan said in 2008 that it had
reached kn agreement with China for joint drilling of potentially
lucrative gas fields near the disputed islands. But the deal has
gone nowhere, with China saying
its stance has not changed.
Prime Minister Yoshihiko
Noda's Democratic Party of Japan has mostly sought smooth
ties with China, which says its
growing military spending is for
peaceful purposes.
Noda asked Chinese President HC Jintao for progress on
the 2008 deal during talks last
month on the sidelines of the
Asia-Pacific summit in Hawaii,
although Japanese officials said
Hu was noncommittal.
But Ishihara said China has
become "assertive, one may even
say aggressive" in recent years
and pointed to its actions in separate maritime disputes with the
Philippines, Vietnam and other
Southeast Asian nations,
"Emboldened by its new economic weight and growing military might, China's proclamations of its 'peaceful rise' appear
more and more at odds with the
emerging reality," he said.
Ishiara, leading a delegation
from his party, was in Washing-
ton partly to ease concerns over
the opposition's stance on the
Trans-Pacific Partnership free-
trade pact championed by President Barack Obama.
Noda announced last month
that Japan will enter the TPP talks
but has faced strong opposition
from farmers worried about foreign competition and threats of
strong resistance by LDP lawmakers who consider the farm industry as a key political base.
Ishihara said discussions on
the TPP are "at the starting line"
and the government must do all
it can to address public concerns
and ensure food security.
"We would like to understand
what the US. wants to get out of
the TPP. If it's an effective tool to
establish a free-trade zone for the
Pacific that benefits both the US.
and Japan, that would be reason
to pursue it," he said. "But if we
can't identify enough merit for
Japan and the US., then maybe
we should pursue another way to
establish a free-trade zone."
