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Japan ruling coalition win threatens regional stability: Xinhua

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe smiles during a television interview in Tokyo, July 10, 2016. ©AFP

China's official Xinhua news agency says a victory for Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's ruling coalition in parliament’s upper house elections poses a danger to regional stability.

Final counts on Sunday showed Abe's coalition had won the two-thirds “super majority” needed to try to revise constitutional restraints on the military.

Such a step - part of Japanese leaders' bid to part with the country's pacifist ways - could strain ties with China, where memories of Japan's past militarism run deep.

“With Japan's pacifist constitution at serious stake and Abe's power expanding, it is alarming both for Japan's Asian neighbors, as well as for Japan itself, as Japan's militarization will serve to benefit neither side,” Xinhua said in a commentary on Monday.

“As for Japan's Asian neighbors, due to historical reasons, they have been paying close attention to Japan's security policies and moves. Now, Japan's re-militarization as well as Abe gaining more power will become new causes for alarm for them,” it said.

Japan’s ruling coalition already enjoys a two-thirds majority in the lower house but it needs a super majority in the House of Councilors to start a parliamentary motion for changing the constitution.

Any legislation on that change, though, would need the approval of the public in the form of a referendum.

Abe, whose economic and military policies have been met with lukewarm public support, hopes that the new mandate would enable him to implement his controversial economic reforms, known as Abenomics.

He also hopes that changes in the constitution would allow him to expand Japan’s military clout as the constitution bars Japan from participating in joint military endeavors abroad.

Many Japanese oppose Abe’s efforts and staunchly embrace the pacifist ideal of the constitution.

Xinhua said, “As Japan becomes more involved in overseas military conflicts, it will also make Japan less secure, instead of safer as Abe's ruling party advocates, for the Japanese might suffer the risk of becoming target of terrorist attacks.”

“For Japan, it is worth noting that Japan owes its rapid development and economic prosperity in the past decades before the lost years, partly to its promise of peace after its defeat in World War II," the news agency said.

"Any deviation from the peaceful path may cost the country heavily in economic terms, as well as its relationship with neighboring countries,” it added.

Under Abe's administration, Japan's military spending has been consistently on the rise each year. The latest military budget for fiscal 2016 is 1.5 percent higher than the previous year at a record 5.05 trillion yen ($50.21 billion).

Relations between China and Japan have long been troubled by a territorial dispute as well as by what China regards as Japan’s failure to properly compensate its World War II-era atrocities.

The two countries have been at loggerheads over the East China Sea islands for many decades, with each side claiming the entire maritime region as their own.

Tokyo has reinforced its southwestern island chain with radar stations and anti-ship missile batteries.

The area is home to the biggest concentration of US military personnel in Asia, effectively blocking China’s east coast access to the Western Pacific.


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