Security bills a security threat

The approval of new security bills by Japan's lower house of parliament may herald the end of a decades-long ban on overseas military activities by Japan's Self-Defense Forces, which will pose a dangerous threat to peace and stability in Asia and the world as a whole.

Given that the bills propose significant adjustments to Japan's established military and security policies, their adoption would mean Japan abandoning its "defense-only" policy and thus they are said to be tantamount to "bills of warfare".

The new bills have invoked strong opposition at home and abroad. An Asahi Shimbun poll of the Japanese public revealed that 56 percent of respondents are opposed to the bills, and 50 percent regard them as a violation of the Constitution. Former Japanese prime minister Tomiichi Murayama, 91, has denounced the bills as intolerable and unforgivable. The United States, France, Russia, Singapore and India have also strongly criticized the bills.