It was Japan's first military contingent since World War II to be deployed in support of forces involved in combat. Ten years ago Japan agreed to send minesweepers to the Persian Gulf only after the Gulf War was over.
"This mission is a first, but we are trained to be able to respond to whatever contingencies may arise," said Rear Admiral Hirotaka Honda. "We want to show what we are capable of."
The mission, which follows weeks of debate in Parliament, is controversial: Opponents at home and in Asian nations that suffered the brunt of Japanese militarism during World War II fear it could be a first step toward loosening constitutional constraints on Japan's armed forces.
The 5,200-ton destroyer Kurama, the 4,550-ton destroyer Kirisame and the 8,100-ton supply ship Haman were dispatched under a new law that allows Japan's Self-Defense Forces to participate in a backup role in the US-led war against terrorism.
The vessels carrying 700 sailors left from a Japanese base at Sasebo, 614 miles southwest of Tokyo shortly before 7 am They will sail through the Strait of Malacca, government and military officials said.
Japan's navy is expected to transport supplies and fuel for allied forces operating in Afghanistan.
"Ever since the Gulf War there has been a growing public recognition that Japan has to take some risks and be part of things related to international peacekeeping," said Gerald Curtis, a visiting researcher at the National Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo.
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi convened his Security Council on Thursday to approve a plan to send the three warships on a reconnaissance mission that will lay the groundwork for dispatching other units.
There is no question of Japanese forces fighting alongside their allies. The new law restricts naval and other units to non-combat missions in areas where hostilities are not expected to take place.
That role was painstakingly scripted by an administration determined to show its commitment to battling terrorism but constrained by an anti-war constitution and bitter memories of Japan's march through Asia in the first half of the century.
Koizumi's three-party coalition passed the authorizing legislation just 40 days after he promised to support US retaliation against the perpetrators of the September 11 attacks.
Newspaper polls indicate a majority of Japanese agree with what the administration has termed "rear-area support," even though the country's tiny Communist and Socialist parties have argued that it violates the spirit if not the letter of a constitution that renounces the use of force as a means of resolving international disputes.
But the sight of warships flying the Rising Sun flag steaming away from a base that once served the Imperial Japanese Navy was bound to be an uncomfortable one for some Japanese and other Asians.
In what some analysts have described as deference to those feelings, the Japanese government has decided not to include its most advanced class of warship - four destroyers equipped with Aegis radar systems - on this first mission.
(China Daily November 9, 2001)
