SINGAPORE: Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Friday pledged to "boldly revise the post-war regime."

In a policy speech, Mr. Abe told the House of Representatives in Tokyo that he would also seek to "reconstruct our legal basis for national security that fits the current times."

The post-war regime is the Constitution that the United States imposed on Japan at the end of the Second World War. One of the centrepieces of that statute is Japan's pacifism or the renunciation of the sovereign right to declare war to meet an emergency.

New national image

Mr. Abe, who had already made a campaign pledge in this regard, said he would strongly hope for the quick passage of a bill that could activate procedures for the revision of the Constitution. His primary "mission is to draw up a new national image for Japan" that could withstand the tides of history in the next 50 or 100 years.

While national security and economic reforms were essential aspects of his agenda, the inculcation of a greater sense of patriotism through education reforms was another dimension. As Japan's first Prime Minister to have been born after the Second World War, he would endeavour to make his country a role model for other nations in the 21st century.

He said Japan would press for permanent membership of the United Nations Security Council and follow a proactive and assertive diplomacy.

In this evolving context, Defence Minister Fumio Kyuma had said on Wednesday that U.S. President George W. Bush was "wrong" when he launched the war on Iraq in 2003 on the "assumption" it possessed nuclear weapons. Mr. Bush's latest decision to deploy more American troops in Iraq "does not [therefore] mean" that Japan would "continue" its current logistical air support for the U.S.-led forces, Mr. Kyuma said.

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