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進入《TAIPEI TIMES 焦點》 Japan’s security bills met with mixed reactions
/ Staff writer, with CNA
Taiwan hopes that Japan will fulfill its international responsibility and contribute to international peace and stability, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Eleanor Wang （王珮玲） said on Saturday, after the Japanese parliament passed two controversial security bills earlier in the day.
The passage of the two bills means that Japanese troops will be allowed to fight abroad for the first time since the end of World War II.
Wang said that the bills were aimed at expanding Japan’s participation in international security affairs and deepening its security alliance with the US.
The US-Japan security alliance serves as a basis for regional peace and stability, she said.
“We’ll continue to keep close tabs on related developments,” she added.
Taiwan hopes that Japan will fulfill its international obligations and contribute to peace, stability and prosperity in the international community, Wang said.
Japan’s upper house enacted the two security laws early on Saturday. One of the bills amends 10 existing security-related laws to lift various restrictions of the Japan Self-Defense Forces, including a long-standing ban on collective self-defense.
The other creates a new permanent law allowing Japan to deploy the Self-Defense Forces overseas to provide logistics support for UN-authorized military operations.
Enacting the laws was one of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s long-held ambitions, aimed at strengthening Japan’s military alliance with the US by removing some of the key restrictions that the war-renouncing Japanese constitution imposed regarding overseas missions, Japanese media reported.
However, the changes have drawn street protests by a cross- section of Japanese society in condemnation of the “war bills,” foreign media reported.
Asked to comment on the Japanese bills, former American Institute in Taiwan （AIT） director William Stanton on Saturday said that their passage was a good decision.
The growing threat from China has created a closer relationship between the US and its allies, he said. It was a natural response, he added.
新聞來源：TAIPEI TIMES
