North Korea Calls Japan’s Planned Security Document Revisions a ‘Blatant Challenge’

North Korea on Monday criticized Japan’s push to revise its “three major security documents,” calling it a “blatant challenge to international peace and humanity,” Yonhap News Agency reported.
 
The Workers’ Party newspaper Rodong Sinmun carried the remarks in an article titled, “Evolving into a war state and war merchant will only recreate the shameful fate of the old Japanese empire.”
 
The paper said Japan was exploiting rising regional tensions to move quickly toward becoming a “war state” and “war merchant,” and described the effort as a “sinister scheme” by “Japanese reactionaries” to pursue what it called ambitions of renewed aggression.
 
It said the planned revisions focus on increasing defense spending, lifting restrictions on arms exports and expanding what it called offensive military capabilities. The paper argued that Japan’s drive to export weapons is aimed not only at profit but also at reviving its arms industry and improving the war-fighting capability of the Self-Defense Forces.
 
It warned that what it called the “reckless rampage” of a former aggressor state would face a “merciless counterattack” from an angered international community.
 
Japan is seeking to revise by year’s end its National Security Strategy, National Defense Strategy and Defense Buildup Program, with China’s expanding Pacific presence in mind.