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TOKYO: The defence panel of Japan's ruling party on Wednesday said that despite its pacifist constitution, it should be able to launch a pre-emptive strike against North Korea to stop any imminent attack.
The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP)'s defence policy committee also argued Japan should develop new spy satellites to provide advance warning of a missile launch without having to rely on US or other allies' intelligence.
The defence debate - sensitive in Japan and East Asia because of Japan's past wartime aggression - follows communist North Korea's latest nuclear and missile tests, which have sharply heightened tensions in the region.
Japan faces elections by October, and Prime Minister Taro Aso's conservative LDP has indicated it plans to make security a key campaign issue.
"North Korea may obtain nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles," former defence chief Gen Nakatani said after the meeting.
"Naturally, we need to be able to strike enemy bases within the realm of the self-defence of our country."
Japan, under its US-imposed 1947 pacifist constitution, renounced using or threatening the use of force in international disputes and has no aircraft carriers, long-range missiles or other weapons for combat beyond its shores.
The country remains under the "umbrella" of the ballistic missile defence shield jointly developed with the United States, which still has some 40,000 troops based in Japan.
The LDP panel's plan - to be submitted to Premier Aso, the party chief, as early as next week - proposes giving Japan its "own capability of attacking enemy bases under the joint missile defence programme with its main ally the United States," said the chair of the meeting, Hiroshi Imazu.
The plan addressed Japan's general defence posture and did not specify what new weapons systems Japan would need or when it would get them.
Japan now has three spy satellites - one equipped with radar and two with optical cameras, which allow Tokyo to monitor any point on Earth once a day - but they lack infrared sensors that can quickly detect a missile launch. - AFP/de
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