JAPAN: NORTH KOREA STILL A SERIOUS AND IMMINENT THREAT

TOKYO— North Korea still poses a “serious and imminent threat,” Japan said on Tuesday in its first annual defense review since tensions eased on the Korean peninsula.

Japan’s 2018 defense white paper also took aim at China’s rise as a military power, saying Beijing was sparking “strong security concerns in the region and international community, including Japan.”

Last year’s defense review was published at the height of the tensions with North Korea, amid nuclear and missile tests.

But since then, a spectacular diplomatic detente has taken place, culminating in the historic summit between US President Donald Trump and the North’s leader Kim Jong-un in Singapore on June 12.

Nevertheless, Tokyo insisted on Tuesday: “There is no change in our basic recognition concerning the threat of North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missiles.”

Pyongyang continues to pose “an unprecedentedly serious and imminent threat to Japan’s security and [to] significantly damage the peace and se- curity of the region and the international community,” according to Tokyo.

Turn for the worse

Japanese Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera acknowledged in the document that North Korea had begun dialogue with former foes the United States and South Korea.

“But we cannot overlook the fact that, even to this day, it possesses and fully deploys several hundred missiles that put nearly all of Japan within range,” stressed the minister.

Despite the historic handshake in Singapore, there has been little progress in denuclearizing the Korean peninsula, and Washington-Pyongyang relations appear to have taken a turn for the worse, with Trump abruptly scrapping a planned visit to the North by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

The white paper also reiterated Japan’s worries about China’s increasing military spending and expanding naval ambitions.

It complained that Beijing was trying to “change the status quo by coercion.”