North Korean leader Kim Jong-il did a backhanded favour for Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe when North Korea tested an atomic device earlier this year. Mr. Abe had come to office just days earlier promising to bolster Japan's defences and buck up national pride. With the threat from neighbouring North Korea looming large, Mr. Abe now has the perfect justification for acting -- provided he reassures his other Asian neighbours that Japan's new assertiveness doesn't threaten them.

Mr. Abe made his first major move this month when his government pushed two new laws through parliament, one to upgrade the defence agency to a full ministry, the other to encourage schools to teach patriotism. The laws have upset neighbouring Asian countries, which fear a return to the Japanese militarism that caused them so much suffering during the Second World War. Those fears, while understandable, are overdone.

Mr. Abe is not a warmonger. He is simply trying to make Japan a "normal" nation with a capable military and a self-confident outlook. He is quite right to do so. Japan still suffers from a defeated-nation psychology that makes it difficult for the country to take the leading international role it deserves as a successful democracy and the world's second-biggest economy. Its military is hobbled by postwar strictures that prevent it from participating fully in safeguarding East Asian security and properly defending its own territory.

Japan's constitution, as drawn up during the postwar American occupation, makes it an officially pacifist country. Article 9 not only pledges to "renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation" but says "land, sea and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained." That stand became impractical as soon as the Cold War broke out, making Japan an important Asian ally of the United States in the defence of the free world. In practice, Japan built a modern navy, army and air force, and today has one of the world's biggest military establishments.

But Japan's armed forces still face unusual limits. They are not supposed to act outside their own borders, even in defence of the homeland, and they are not supposed to come to the aid of an ally through collective defence. The North Korean crisis has underlined just how limiting those constraints could be. If Japan learned that North Korea was about to fire missiles at the Japanese mainland, it would be legally forbidden to order a pre-emptive strike to knock out the missile launchers. If North Korea fired missiles at Hawaii, the ban on collective defence would enjoin it from shooting down the missiles as they flew over Japan -- a failure that might cause Washington to question the value of the U.S.-Japan defence pact.

Even if such frightening scenarios never come true, the limits on Japan's flexibility are serious. Japan has signed up for the U.S.-led Proliferation Security Initiative, which commits those who join to intercept ships at sea if they might be carrying weapons of mass destruction such as North Korean bombs. But it's not clear whether Japan's navy could help U.S. ships that came under attack during such an operation.

Quite understandably, Mr. Abe wants to free his country's hands. In his first policy speech after coming to office this September, he said that given "changes in the international situation," Japan must "thoroughly study individual specific cases to identify what kind of case falls under the exercise of the right of collective self-defence which is forbidden under the constitution, so that the Japan-U.S. alliance functions more effectively and peace is maintained." He would like to rewrite the constitution to give Japan more elbow room, but that would require a referendum and a two-thirds majority in both houses of parliament, something that might take years to pull off. In the meantime, it seems reasonable for Japan to take smaller steps, such as upgrading the defence agency and promoting patriotism in the schools, where for years even the singing of the national anthem and flying of the national flag were often discouraged.

But it is not enough to persuade the Japanese people of the need for these moves. Mr. Abe must also show Japan's neighbours that his country has no aggressive intent. He must first give up any thought of visiting the shrine to Japan's wartime dead in Tokyo that honours several leading war criminals. Visits to the Yasukuni shrine by his predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi, set off protests around Asia. He must also ensure that, when the schools preach love of the nation, they also teach students about Japan's wartime misdeeds. Asians have been angered in the past when Japanese textbooks glossed over atrocities such as the Rape of Nanking.

In fact, Mr. Abe would do a world of good for East Asian harmony if he made a special visit to Nanking (now Nanjing) and other Asian atrocity sites to express Japan's remorse. Japanese leaders have issued statements of regret before, but what is needed now is something dramatic -- a Nixon-to-China, Sadat-to-Jerusalem break with the past that shows all Asians that Japan really has turned over a new leaf. If Mr. Abe can pull off something like that, his neighbours cannot reasonably object to his modest attempts to bolster Japan's defences and become a full partner in upholding East Asian security.

CTVglobemedia © Copyright 2007 CTVglobemedia publishing Inc. All Rights Reserved.