Japan needs 'a marine corps of its own'
The policy chief of Japan's Liberal Democratic Party has stated that the military there should develop a rapid-response force that is equivalent to the United States Marine Corps.
Shigeru Ishiba said the new unit would have the express objective of reacting to aggression by foreign powers that had occupied Japanese territory. That is a clear reference to the recent heightened tension with China in waters surrounding the Okinawa chain of islands and, in particular, the Senkaku Islands, which Japan occupies but which China and Taiwan both claim.
China refers to the uninhabited islets as the Diaoyu Islands.
'It would be strange for an island country like Japan not to have marines in the future,' the former defence minister said on television on Sunday.
As well as growing tensions with China, the issue has been brought up due to the ongoing uncertainty over the presence of the US marines' Futenma Air Station on Okinawa.
Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has finally agreed to proceed with a plan to keep the functions of the air base within the prefecture, but the debate over Japan's ability to protect itself in the event of war has once again been stirred.
Claiming the creation of a Japanese marine unit would not be a contravention of the constitution, Ishiba said Japan had relied on the presence of US forces for long enough, and that the new formation would be able to work more closely with the US marines.
The proposal is unlikely to be welcomed in other parts of Asia, particularly in countries that were occupied by Japan in the early decades of the last century, invasions that were invariably led by units of the Imperial Japanese Navy's Special Navy Landing Forces - the equivalent of the US marines.
