Can South Korea Embrace Japan's Expanding Security Role?

초록

Amid all-time low bilateral relations with Seoul, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, in his second cabinet of 2012, came up with a more resolute program to realize his grandfather’s unfulfilled dream − revision of the Peace Constitution. Intensifying Chinese maritime territorial claims prompted Tokyo to publish the new National Security Council strategy and the new National Defense Program Outline in 2013. Subsequently, in April 2014, Prime Minister Abe passed the decision on Japan’s right of exercising collective self-defense, signaling a significant shift from the old self-imposed restriction on the use of force as a means of dispute settlement. Accordingly did Japan revise the Defense Guidelines in April 2015 at the New York meetings between Defense-Diplomacy chiefs. Against soured public confidence on Japan, Koreans readily expressed both watchful eyes and careful acceptance.