Japan's Abe coins phrase 'active pacifism' in formulating new security strategy

Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Thursday called on his government to take a more proactive stance to ensure global peace and stability amid what he called a shifting geopolitical and security environment in East Asia. "We must aim to increase Japan's engagement in safeguarding the world's peace and stability in order to pursue an active pacifism based on international cooperation," Abe told a panel of defense and foreign affairs experts, using the term "active pacifism" for the first time. "We need to have a more integrated national security policy and the government needs to be more strategic and systematic in addressing security issues," he told the panel who are charged with drafting new security guidelines, which will form the basis of Japan's formation of a United States-style National Security Council. Japan is currently planning to submit a new bill to bring the new security council to fruition as a means to better respond to security threats, sources with knowledge of the matter said Thursday. The expert panel, led by Shinichi Kitaoka, president of the International University of Japan, will complete the security strategy by the end of the year, in twine with the Ministry of Defense drafting its own guidelines for its revised defense protocols. "It is extremely important to show our country's security policy in a more proactive and effective manner both at home and abroad," Kitaoka told a press briefing after the meeting. "We need to ask ourselves whether we can maintain peace in the world just because Japan, the world's third-largest economy, looks inward and maintains that we won't possess military strength," said Kitaoka. Abe is also looking to boost the ability of Japan's Self- Defense Forces (SDF) from a position of "peace and independence" and is pushing for Japan's self-imposed, war-renouncing Constitution to be changed to allow its forces more military autonomy. Under Japan's current Constitution, Japan is prohibited from using force to settle international disputes, but Abe, a staunch Conservative, is ultimately pushing to have Article 9 of the Constitution changed to strengthen the SDF's power to defend islands central to maritime standoffs with Japan's neighbors. "Defense capabilities should reflect a country's will and ability to protect its peace and independence, so we need to acquire defense capabilities that will allow the SDF to play the role that is required of them as we review the defense program guidelines," Abe told the panel Thursday.