KCNA Commentary on Japan's "Submarine-Hunter"

Pyongyang, March 24 (KCNA) -- The newly-built latest guard ship of Japan has recently been in the spotlight of the world media.

A Canadian radio on Mar. 16 said that Japan launched the first highly functional submarine-hunter in nearly 30 years, and referred to Tokyo's concern over the Chinese submarines now in operation in the waters near Japan proper.

The Mar. 11th issue of paper of Hong Kong, China "South China Morning Post", elaborating on the news, quoted a professor at a Japanese university as saying that the "principal targets of Japan are China and north Korea, and China poses a more serious potential threat to Japan".

The guard ship is a latest warship capable of sensing and digitizing the noise from propeller vane of subs hundreds of kilometers away and confirming even the type of sub and its nationality. So the specialists call it "submarine-hunter" and "special spy ship".

The warship deserves attention of regional countries for its emergence as a new lever in carrying out naval and underwater operations in the Pacific.

Japan possessing the greatest naval forces in the Asia-Pacific region second to the U.S. is still putting spurs to strengthening the naval supremacy under the pretext of threats from neighboring countries.

Since 2018, Japan has pushed forward with the building of 22 new escort ships whose main mission is to guard and monitor in the East China Sea. The archipelago country will reportedly set out to build a patrol craft from this year so as to set up complete system for observing the East China Sea by the 2030s.

All the facts show that the military operations of Japan's naval forces are obviously focused on the area west of the archipelago.

The supposition that Japan will offer the data gathered by the "submarine-hunter" to the seabed observation network set up by the U.S. and the ship will be deployed in the base near the waters in dispute with China further touches off the greater concern of the regional community.

The "theory on potential threat from China" heard quite often from Japan, in the wake of the "story of threat from north Korea," now comes to be an oft-repeated pretext for building up its military forces.

The reality points to the absurdity and duplicity of Japan trumpeting about the "new era and new development of Japan-China relations." -0