Japan Press Weekly

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2014 March 26 - April 1 [SDF]

Amphibious mobile regiment will be created in Sasebo

The Ministry of Defense has approved a policy to create an amphibious mobile regiment on the coast of Sasebo City in Nagasaki, which will inevitably increase military tension in Northeast Asia.

The ministry on March 24 notified the local government of the plan to deploy 52 amphibious vehicles in the city’s Sakibe district by FY 2018, based on the mid-term program of the new National Defense Program Guidelines aiming to add new functions like the U.S. Marine Corps to the Japanese Self-Defense Forces.

At the Ground SDF Camp Ainoura near the Sakinobe district, a 700-personnel infantry regiment is already assigned for the defense of remote islands. The national government intends to reorganize this regiment to eventually command SDF amphibious units as a whole. By Mach next year, the defense authorities will form a preparatory regiment.

The national government will position those units for the defense of southwestern islands with a potential military confrontation with China in mind.

Japanese Communist Party member of the Sasebo City Assembly Yamashita Chiaki warned, “This move is as serious as the Abe administration’s attempt to implement the right to collective self-defense. The city of Sasebo will be forced to be the forefront of a war-capable nation.”

Past related article:
> JCP opposes government’s new defense policies [December 18, 2013]