In November 2016, with the reelection of Conservative Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the Japanese Diet faced a momentous proposition. Rumors abounded that Abe aimed at restructuring the Japanese Constitution, adopted with American support in 1946, with a primary focus on removing Article 9, which prevented Japan from maintaining any form of military force and saw its people “renouncing” war.
Amid outrage from China, South Korea, and Japanese left-wing and apologist activists, Abe backed down. The issue was sidelined and forgotten in the midst of an economic recession and China’s posturing in the South China Sea. But this year, on March 26, the Diet reconvened a committee to discuss possible amendments to the Constitution, specifically regarding a recent upsurge in right-wing and nationalist sentiments. Even for the modern world, the atrocities committed by Imperial Japan are difficult to comprehend. Beginning in 1937 with the invasion of China, Japan set in motion eight years of non-stop war for itself and the peoples of East Asia. Among the casualties of this conflict are Korean forced laborers and sex slaves known as ‘comfort women’ trafficked to satisfy Japanese soldiers; Manchurian, Southeast Asian, and Pacific civilians brutalized to feed the Japanese war machine; over 20 million dead Chinese civilians; and most famously, the myriad victims of the Nanking Massacre. Throughout its war with the Allied Powers, Japan committed many more atrocities on the civilian populations of Asia not mentioned above. Since the end of the war, the Japanese government has adopted a policy of apologist conciliation. The American occupation of Japan saw the building of a stable and peaceful democracy. The Japanese education system has adopted a merciless stance on eliminating right-wing nationalism in schools and educational works. Multiple apologies have been issued to conquered nations such as South Korea and China, such as the Fusen Ketsugi Resolution passed on the 50th Anniversary of the end of World War II. Most recently, precedent setting state visits by Japanese Prime Minister Abe and United States President Barak Obama to Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima have enshrined the friendship and alliance of the two former rivals. The beginning of the Iraq War in 2001 saw the first serious contentions raised for revision of the Article, as Japanese Self-Defense Forces were sent as humanitarian agents to Iraq. Despite litigation against such action, serious civilian opposition to a deployment of overseas Japanese military forces did not materialize. In 2007, the first Japanese military personnel were deployed overseas in Somalia to act as peacekeeping personnel. For many Japanese, the need for a strong defense force and a revision of its Constitution comes from the imminent threat posed by its immediate neighbor North Korea. Recent warmongering and nuclear tests have provoked many Conservatives in the Diet to request an enlargement of the Japanese Self-Defense Force, not only as a possible deterrent but also as an attempt to increase national pride. Right-wing radicals have also suggested the procuring of nuclear weapons as a deterrent. Today, as the generation that experienced World War II and its immediate aftermath steadily ages, younger Japanese seem more eager to regain a sense of nationalist pride. While most of the nation remains Pacifist in support of Article 9 and complete disarmament, a steady increase in mercantilists --- who call for an increase in international intervention to promote economic growth, normalists--- who call for gradual rearmament of the SDF, and the extremist nationalists--- who advocate for the revision of Article 9 to allow for rearmament, is visible throughout the nation. Unlike the United States’ two-party system, Japan’s Diet houses a multi-party system, which is headed by a directly elected Prime Minister. While these parties are varied in stances and issues, there is a stark left-right divide when it comes to remilitarization and the revision of Article 9. While a coalition led by Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party controls a majority of seats in the Diet, and has been successful in maintaining Abe as Prime Minister, Leftist parties like the Democratic Party of Japan and the Japanese Communist Party have condemned Abe’s actions. Due to Article 96 of the Japanese Constitution, which requires a 2/3 majority for a Constitutional Amendment to pass, a serious revision of Article 9 has not even been considered. Amid leftist protests are the concern that partisan differences are making the Diet more and more unrepresentative of the Japanese People, who are still overwhelmingly pacifist according to recent polls. Another increasing concern shared by the Japanese people is the increase in partisan deadlock, which have begun to leak into civilian administrative issues, such as how to best requisition funds for relief to the Fukushima disaster area. Many analysts believe the Japanese government is becoming more ineffectual, as a complicated bureaucracy of committees and legislative debates only strengthen deadlock. In the new millennium, Japan--- like many Western-based nations--- faces a crises of conscience to its traditional pacifist way of life. Its reactions to new threats, both economic and political from China and North Korea, through radicalization highlights an unfortunate pattern of partisan division and governmental ineffectiveness common today in first world democracies. While these crises of conscience has been triggered in France, Great Britain, Germany, Romania, Belgium, Greece, and the United States with an influx of refugees from the Middle East and illegal immigrants, Japan’s increasing division offers a unique and isolated perspective on a global phenomenon. How Japanese citizens react to a basic challenge to their perceived democratic norm offers a striking case study for the probable fate of radicalization in Western democracies. Japan certainly does not need to rearm, even in face of threats like North Korea and China, as the presence of the US fleet deters most foreign aggression, and the Japanese SDF are among the most well-equipped modern armies of the world. Revision of Article 9 has thus become a matter of pride to an emerging sect of increasingly nationalistic, increasingly right-wing young Japanese, encouraging revisionists like Abe. It stands as a test to Japan’s dedication to Western values and pacifism, and a forgotten crises as the world collectively holds its breath in 2017.
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By Kuangye WangAlong term contributor to the Hallway Herald and webmaster . |