Abe's tour of Latin America highlights military strategy purpose: Italian expert

ROME, July 25 (Xinhua) -- Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's 11-day tour of Latin American countries highlights military strategy purposes, Alessia Cerantola, cofounder of Investigative Reporting Project Italy (IRPI), an association of investigative journalists based in Italy, told Xinhua on Friday.

"Abe's search for a reshape of Japan's own security identity is one of the reasons behind this trip," Cerantola, a journalist focusing on Japanese issues, said.

"The success in convincing his Cabinet to change the pacifist interpretation of Article 9 of the Constitution by the end of last Diet session in June gave him strength," she pointed out. In her view, "Abe is now able to better fight to redefine the strategic role of Japan in the world."

Cerantola noted that despite the unlikeness or extreme difficulty of the mission, the Japanese prime minister was "trying to convince Latin American countries to support Japan for a permanent seat in the UN security Council."

"Economic arguments will also be at the heart of the debate and tightly related to diplomacy," she said. "But business meetings coming soon after the visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping to the same region sound like a bad timing, even if intentional, and could make it harder for Abe to obtain the expected results," she elaborated.