By MALILA Harris
JAPAN NEWS - Fearing the shifting balance of power in Asia, Japan has underwent sweeping changes to its national defense policies, pushing its southern forces in responses to neighboring China's military rise.
China's growing defense build-up is a growing concern for global concern, and Japan shares a maritime border with China. It has unveiled that it will strengthen its missile defenses because there are threats from North Korea.
Japan's National Defense Program Guideline will look after renewed defense policies for the next 10 years. The cabinet has already approved the guidelines.
Earlier Japan focused on north to counter the potential threat from the former Soviet Union, but later on it had been shifting to south of Japan, closer to China and remote flashpoint islands near Taiwan. The guidelines says Japan is concerned by China's growing military arsenal, improving on modern warfare and deploying extra naval forces in the East China and South China seas.
"These movements, coupled with the lack of transparency on China's military and security issues, the trend is a concern for the region and the international community," the new guidelines say.
It is reported that Japan and China had always a frictional relationships, but the water became murkier in September when a Chinese trawler collided with Japanese patrol boats near a chain of disputed islands in the East China sea.
The guidelines also outlined the possible threat from North Korea whose nuclear program has become a global threat. The report says North Korea's missile and nuclear enrichment are "pressing and serious destabilizing factors".
In recent years Pyongyang has attacked Japan with missiles and staged nuclear tests.
China has responded sharply over the Japan's military guidelines and remarks, saying the country is becoming the power for the development of Asia, and not threat to countries. The Foreign Ministry of China dismissed Japan's remarks as irresponsible.
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