Japan’s top military commander, Admiral Katsutoshi Kawano, said on Thursday he expected China to become increasingly assertive in the South China Sea and it was possible Japan would conduct patrols and surveillance activities there in the future.
Speaking in Washington, Kawano said there had been “talk” of Japan conducting such patrols in the South China Sea, including anti-submarine activities. “But our position on this is that we consider this as a potential future issue to be considered depending on how things pan out,” he told the Center for Strategic and International Studies thinktank.
Kawano’s comments come after Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, pushed legislation through parliament’s lower house on Thursday that could see Japanese troops sent to fight abroad for the first time since the second world war.
Kawano earlier met with his US counterpart, General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and discussed implementation of updated bilateral defense guidelines agreed this year, a joint statement said.
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