Japan’s Lower House OKs Sending Military Overseas : Policy: Troops would go abroad for the first time since WWII, for peacekeeping and relief operations.

In a move ending Japan’s postwar policy of non-involvement in overseas military affairs, the lower house of Parliament passed a bill Tuesday permitting the Cabinet to dispatch Japanese troops abroad for emergency relief missions and noncombat U.N. peacekeeping operations.

Support from the Buddhist-backed Komei (Clean Government) Party was expected to ensure the measure’s passage in the upper house, where the ruling Liberal Democrats lack a majority.

The bill will allow the regular overseas dispatch of noncombat troops for the first time since the end of World War II. But it specifically bans any “threat or use of force.” Troops would be permitted to bear “small arms” for self-protection but would be withdrawn if hostilities break out.

If the Phnom Penh government approves, the first dispatch of Japanese forces would be to Cambodia, where a U.N. peacekeeping force has begun overseeing disarmament and elections to choose a new government, said a high Japanese government official who did not mention how many troops might be dispatched.

Defense Agency officials are asking for at least a year for special training of Japanese troops, while the Foreign Ministry is advocating an early dispatch, he said.

The troop deployment bill, which has upset many Japanese and many in Asian countries that Japan invaded and colonized in the first half of this century, heralds a major change in 46 years of postwar “low-profile” diplomacy.

Three years ago, even the sending of a single diplomat to monitor the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan created a furor here.

And, until the Gulf War broke out in August, 1990, no postwar Japanese politician had ever proposed sending Japan’s Self-Defense Forces overseas. Since then, however, Japan has come under bitter criticism for its stance.

Japan’s postwar constitution forbids the maintenance of armed forces and the use of force to settle international disputes. Successive governments have interpreted the charter as permitting self-defense. But until now, they have ruled out military actions overseas.

In January, the government of former Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu made an administrative decision to dispatch Air Self-Defense Force cargo planes to transport refugees from the Gulf War. But no requests came and the planes were not dispatched.

In April, in another administrative move, Kaifu sent five minesweepers to the Persian Gulf, the first overseas mission for Japanese forces since 1945.

Both actions, however, were approved as onetime measures.

The new troop deployment measure is likely to receive a warm reception in Washington and to cause alarm in Asia.

During a visit here last month, Secretary of State James A. Baker III chided Japan for what he called “checkbook diplomacy.” Although Japan contributed $11 billion to the U.S.-led forces in the Gulf War and gave $2 billion more in economic aid to “front-line states,” it sent no personnel to the Middle East until after the fighting. Critics in Japan, too, condemned what they called “one-nation pacifism”--a policy of seeking peace only for Japan.

But Asians have spoken out repeatedly against any overseas dispatch of troops by Japan. China and South Korea have charged that the move will lead to the resurrection of Japan as a military giant. Japan now spends less on defense ($32 billion) than on corporate entertainment ($38.3 billion).

“We can’t but be worried, as we underwent bitter experiences in the past. . . . We cannot help but express our grave concern again as the peacekeeping forces bill was passed today,” the South Korean Foreign Ministry said.

Final passage of the bill will come in the upper house after the current session of Parliament is extended beyond its present closing date of Dec. 10, the government official said. The Liberal Democrats control 115 seats and need 125 votes for approval; the Komei Party holds 20 seats in the upper house. Timing of final passage remained unclear. The Socialists and Communists, condemning the bill as unconstitutional, promised to delay enactment.

The neo-Buddhist Komei Party, itself reversing decades of pacifist policy, joined the ruling group in passing the bill, 311 to 167.

The ruling party agreed to an amendment requiring Parliament’s approval for extension of any deployment beyond two years. But Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa rejected a demand from the middle-of-the-road Democratic Socialist Party for approval of each dispatch of troops.

“Interminable debate that always occurs in Parliament over security issues” would hamstring Japan in trying to respond to U.N. calls for help, the official said. “Already, it has taken 15 months of debate to get (this measure) passed.

“Whenever the issue involves security, it always turns into a donnybrook,” he said, noting the melee that broke out in a lower house committee when it approved the troop-dispatch bill last Wednesday. “The bottleneck is the serious mistake Japan committed 50 years ago” when it attacked Pearl Harbor, igniting World War II, he said.