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| Shinzō Abe (Wiki Info - Image: Wiki Commons) |
By John W. Traphagan
One of the more important public debates in Japan in recent months has surrounded the Abe government’s aim to make significant changes to the Japanese Constitution. Abe plans to start with Article 96, which stipulates the process for making Constitutional changes, and loosen the amendment process to make other changes easier. One of the targets of further change is Article 9, the renunciation of war imposed upon Japan by the Constitution’s American authors during the Occupation following WWII.
Changing Article 9 is a difficult task in part because it has similarities with the Second Amendment of the American Constitution, not in content, but in the sense that it has become a deeply embedded part of Japanese perspectives of their own national identity. It is more than a legal statement; it is also a statement of Japanese values and culture as they have developed since the end of the war.
Nonetheless, Article 9 presents a problem because of the very strong language used. The article states, “Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes. To accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.” Part of the difficulty with Article 9 rests in the second sentence, which clearly prohibits Japan from maintaining a military. Since the Korean War, Japan has, not surprisingly with encouragement from the ever-hypocritical US government, maintained a “defense” force. This was initially formed as a National Police Reserve that was basically a light infantry, but over time evolved into a more complete air, sea, and land force designed to defend Japan from external attack. The Japanese government has interpreted its way around the fact that this doesn’t look much like this is within the spirit of Article 9 by claiming that it maintains self-defense forces, and thus not a military per se. Of course, this is simply splitting hairs—the Japanese today have a sophisticated military and are among the top ten military spenders in the world.
Read the full story at The Diplomat