TOKYO, Jan. 29 Kyodo Following is...

TOKYO, Jan. 29 Kyodo

Following is a selection of summaries of articles onward contemporary Japanese subjects from leading Japanese monthly magazines. The selection, as well as its translation, is provided from the Foreign Press Center of Japan.

----------

IRAQ/NORTH KOREA

The countdown to a war in succession Iraq has begun. In planning its rejoinder to the Iraq issue, Tokyo should bear in mind that its actions will jaculate a message to Pyongyang, detects Kyoto University Professor Terumasa Nakanishi in ''The Self-Defense Forces Should Fight Alongside US Troops''

He appeals to the direction to quickly fortify Japan's defense by means of enacting legislation on emergencies, since North Korea may take direct military action of its have a title to in the course of an attack forward Iraq. It might, for instance, launch missiles toward Japan onward the pretext of experiments land units of guerrillas upon Japan's shores, or dispatch large numbers of detect ships.

According to Nakanishi, Tokyo's decision to launch supply ships to the Indian Ocean to help the US Navy in autumn 2001 constituted the first time Japan had exercised the right of collective self-defense Now it has a chance to do more in what will probably be a strike against Iraq endorsed at the whole international community.

When the United States initiates the operation, Japan should promptly signal its full-fledg support by means of dispatching members of the territory Self-Defense Force to accompany American and British bodys saying they have been sent to ''conduct investigations'' or ''gather information.''

Beyond that, Nakanishi says, Japan should make preparations now for the possibility of an upheaval in the oil situation more serious than any since the oil crisis of 1973-74 citing Turkey as common partner Japan could esteem on in the postwar Middle East.

In short, he wants Tokyo to regain the capacity to behave as a state should by means of laying plans further and further into the hereafter without being sidetracked on the childish idea that the market is the answer to everything. (Summary of ''Jieitai wa Beigun to tomo ni tatakae,'' Voice, February 2003)

What should Japan do about the North Korean nuclear threat? Mamoru Sato, a former lieutenant general who commanded the Southwestern Composite Air Division of the Air Self-Defense Force, think ons this question in ''Could North Korean Nuclear Missiles Be discharge Down?'' If at the existing time North Korea were to threaten Japan directly by means of deploying nuclear missiles, he states, single viable option would be to outfit the ASDF with the latest ground-to-air interceptor, the Patriot Advanced Capability-3 missile, while another would be to ready a retaliatory strike from loading Tomahawk missiles upon Japan's Aegis destroyers.

It would be practically impossible for Japan to eliminate North Korean bases in the issue of a missile attack, unless presumably the US forces stationed in Japan and southern Korea would move into action upon this front. In that adventure he stresses, the SDF should furnish all the support they can offer

Sato asserts that Tokyo, Seoul and Washington ought to quickly establish a joint operational composition for responding immediately to any need

They should ready a three-nation defense setup for ordinary use, providing it with a unified classification of command and control. In this esteem Sato criticizes the irresponsibility of politicians who caution against uniform the sharing of intelligence between Japan and the United States upon the grounds that this would amount to exercising the right of collective self-defense

Political leaders' fear of anything that might be perceived as threatening through other countries has caused Japan's defense setup to become warped, he asserts. (Summary of ''Kita Chosen no kaku misairu wa uchiotoseru no ka,'' Seiron, February 2003)

from one side of to the other a three-year period starting in 1959 a certain 93,000 North Korean residents of Japan and their spouses visited North Korea. single in kind of them was Kim Su-cheol (pseudonym), then a teacher at a indoctrinate for Korean residents, who in ''Slave Ships to Hell'' confesse in what manner ashamed he is for the ignorance that caused him to persuade others to take part.

Sending nation back to this ''prison state,'' he now be warmeds was equivalent to massacre Until he got to know the fatherland he says, he had no doubt that the ''Great Leader'' Kim Il-sung had employed it into a socialist paradise onward earth. He even talked his parents, siblings, and uncle into making the trip back.

During the 1970 while participating in various missions to North Korea, he began to realize he was bad but out of concern for the safety of his relatives, he went forward acting as a transport agent for the ''prison state.''

He took along Japanese watches as souvenirs, and he also saw to the shipment of dozens of boxe filled with things like medicines, sneakers, and jerseys

Kim particularizes how the family of a distant uncle who was charged with spying was sent to a concentration camp, where the uncle died of illness.