As Japan prepares to revise its three key security documents this year, ruling coalition partner the Japan Innovation Party (JIP), also known as Nippon Ishin no Kai, is staking out one of the more hawkish positions in the debate: acquiring nuclear-powered submarines, and a possible review of the country¡¯s decades-old nonnuclear principles.
¡°China is expanding its naval reach increasingly into the second island chain in the Pacific, and operations there are likely to become mainstream,¡± Seiji Maehara, a senior JIP lawmaker who leads the party¡¯s national security discussions, told The Japan Times in a recent interview.
The second island chain refers to a strategic defense line in the Western Pacific stretching from Japan¡¯s Ogasawara Islands through Guam and parts of Micronesia.
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