Tokyo (ANTARA News/Reuters) - New Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe appointed lower house lawmaker Itsunori Onodera as defence minister on Wedesday as the government seeks to balance a bolder security stance with the need to repair ties with China and South Korea, frayed by rows over territory and wartime history.

The hawkish Abe wants to loosen the limits of the post-World War Two pacifist constitution on the nation`s military to allow it to go to the aid of its U.S. ally if attacked, and more broadly to play a bigger global security role, but how quickly he will move on such contentious changes remains unclear.

Onodera, 52, served as a a senior vice foreign minister from August 2007 in Abe`s first cabinet. He hails from the city of Kesennuma in Miyagi prefecture, northeast Japan, which was hard-hit by the massive March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami disasasters.(*)

Editor: Heru Purwanto
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