JAPANESE troops could soon be training with Diggers on Australian soil for the first time as part of a move to forge closer military ties. Australian and Japanese defence officials have discussed the proposed war games as Tokyo yesterday took a historic step away from its post-war pacifist stance, ending a decades-old ban on military exports, and adopting a more aggressive defence and counter-terrorism posture. Although only in the early stages, the contentious military training talks, which have not reached ministerial level, are certain to divide war veterans and others in the community. It could also pose problems for Canberra's burgeoning relationship with China - including the pursuit of a free trade deal - given ongoing tensions between Beijing and Tokyo. As part of Japan's new military expansion, Tokyo has instructed its defence planners to regard China and North Korea as potential threats. Allowing Japanese troops to train in Australia would be viewed dimly by China, which is likely to become Australia's biggest trading partner over the next decade. Defence Minister Robert Hill's office said yesterday it was unaware of any approach by Tokyo. But Senator Hill believes "participation in exercises" is one of the ways of deepening the Australia-Japan relationship. Foreign Minister Alexander Downer also said last night that the Japanese Government had not made any formal approach. "But I suppose (if it were raised) there would be some community sensitivity," Mr Downer said. Veteran Perce Curvey, 87, a World War II survivor who spent three years and eight months as a war prisoner, told The Weekend Australian yesterday that the training exercises would be an insult to the memory of the the thousands of POWs who died. "There is a move afoot amongst some ex-POWs to forget and forgive," he said. "Well, I can't forget and I can't forgive, because what the Japanese did to us was brutal and totally unnecessary."
A memorandum of understanding signed by the Australian and Japanese defence ministers in Canberra in September last year, which has been made public only in the past fortnight, commits both countries to exploring "new areas of co-operation for promoting and deepening Australia-Japan defence exchange". The two countries already have strong intelligence and counter-terrorism ties - particularly in dealing with the nuclear threat posed by North Korea - and are also involved in naval and air exercises and unit to unit exchanges. Military expert Alan Dupont, a senior research fellow at the Sydney based Lowy Institute who has just completed a pivotal study on Japan's expected re-emergence as a defence power in the Pacific, predicted yesterday that joint land training exercises were "the next logical step in defence co-operation between the two countries".