Japan may deploy troops near disputed islands

"We are studying (the deployment) so that it could be included in the planned year-end revision of the basic defence programme," the official said, confirming a news report on the plan to send an army unit to Yonaguni island.

Yonaguni is located 120 kilometres (75 miles) east of Taiwan and 170 kilometres south of the uninhabited islands known as the Senkaku in Japanese and Diaoyu in Chinese.

The ministry official said the location of military deployments along a chain of islands between the southern tip of Japan's Kyushu island and Taiwan is "an important factor in the nation's defence deployment."

The Tokyo Shimbun daily described the planned move as part of Japan's shift of its defence focus from its northern borders during the Cold War era to the country's southwestern borders.

Japan's current southernmost deployment of troops is in Naha on the main island of Okinawa, 500 kilometres northeast of Yonaguni, according to the defence ministry.

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