Singapore newspaper welcomes Japan's troop dispatch

Asian Political News, Jan 26, 2004

SINGAPORE, Jan. 19 Kyodo

Singapore's Straits Times welcomed Monday Japan's recent decision to send troops to a combat zone in Iraq to help coalition forces, saying the old fear among many Asian countries that Japan might revert to militarism is now passe under the new global security dimensions.

''Outside Japan, those given to suspecting its intentions may wonder whether the country has embarked on a new adventurism in the guise of fulfilling its commitments to the international community,'' the paper said in an editorial titled ''Good Point, Japan.''

It said there are indications the role of Japan's Self-Defense Forces, which is now limited, might be enlarged if the troops in Iraq complete their mission successfully.

''To the cynic, the best way for postwar Japan to contribute to world affairs is to stay out of any kind of military involvement with them.''

''Notwithstanding the reality of Japanese militarism in the past century, such views are churlish and shortsighted because they fail to recognize how the dimensions of security -- both Japan's and the rest of the world's -- have changed in the aftermath of the 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States and the Iraq War,'' it said.

The dispatch of Japanese troops to Iraq marks the first time since World War II they have gone into what is a combat zone, although Japanese forces have participated in U.N. peacekeeping operations before.

The newspaper said Japan has an international responsibility to help in Iraq's reconstruction.

''For the sake of Iraq, political stability in the Middle East, the security of oil supplies and the cut-no-corners war on terror, Japan and other countries must persevere with the hard work of bringing Iraq back to normal,'' it said.

Singapore estimates that between 50,000 and 100,000 people in the country, mainly Chinese, were killed by the Imperial Japanese Army during the Japanese occupation from 1942 to 1945.

However, Singapore has been one of the least vociferous among Asian countries affected by World War II about Japan's dispatch of troops for U.N. peacekeeping missions as the government prefers to pursue an agenda of close economic and political cooperation with Japan.

More than a dozen World War II memorials still dot the island state, visited occasionally by war veterans from Britain, Australia and New Zealand and the older generation who lost a family member or a friend in that war.

But the younger generation has long been nonchalant about Japan's militaristic past, and has, in fact, become avid fans of Japan's pop music, fashion, television dramas, sushi and comics.