Tokyo itches to take on pirates
By Kosuke Takahashi

JAPAN Nov 21, 2008

TOKYO - Shocked by a string of pirate attacks on Japanese-owned tankers off the coast of Somalia, normally pacifist Japan is considering a new bill for the deployment of its powerful navy to fend off marauders and protect vital trade routes off the coast of East Africa.

If Japan has thus far disappointed the international community

by failing to implement effective anti-piracy measures to help safeguard the world economy - it may be more to do with legislative gridlock than any lack of political will. In fact, one prominent naval expert feels that Japan is in a unique position to play a leading role in resolving the escalating piracy crisis that isslowly paralyzing Asia's sea lanes.

"This is a matter of criminal activities, requiring a policing role coupled with other forms of policy intervention, not a war matter, requiring a primarily military

response," Professor Richard Tanter, senior research associate at the Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainability and co-author of About face: Japan's remilitarization, told Asia Times Online. "Japan has the chance to gain kudos by going beyond a 'send in the gunboats' response, building on its long tradition in foreign policy of comprehensive security ... rather than a purely militarized response."

The Japanese Foreign Ministry opened a new unit on maritime security just last month, a move Tanter described as "not just a bureaucratic move, I think it means that they see this issue as something on which they can take a diplomatic lead".

As Somalia's pirate problem gets steadily worse, many nations, such as the United States the European Union, have dispatched naval vessels to crack down. Now, the Japanese government is weighing the option of dispatching its Maritime Self-Defense Force (MSDF) destroyers and P3C patrol aircraft

to the waters off Somalia to protect commercial vessels. Still, piracy is hardly a new concern for most politicians in Tokyo.

"Piracy has been a big concern for the Japanese shipping industry and the Japanese government for more than 10 years - since the first spikes of activity in the eastern Indian Ocean, Straits of Malacca and related areas," said Tanter. "The government is understandably alarmed at the seizure of the [Japanese chemical tanker] Chemstar Venus, and then subsequent seizure of a bigger Saudi tanker. Certainly, the disruption of sea lanes in such a key area is a serious concern for Japan, as it is for all other countries reliant on energy flows by sea from the region - including China, for example, as well as Korea."