POLITICS-JAPAN: Security Bills Reflect Growing Insecurity

By Suvendrini Kakuchi Reprint | | Print |

Suvendrini Kakuchi

TOKYO, May 20 2003 (IPS) - The expected passage of a set of bills giving the state the power to respond to a foreign military attack is causing consternation among peace activists, who worry that the stage is being set for Japan to one day renounce its Peace Constitution.

On Monday, Japan’s House of Councillors, the upper house of parliament, began debating three bills that contain new definitions of situations under which Japan would be considered to be under armed attack.

This may be nothing unusual for most countries, but it is a sensitive issue in Japan, which renounced the right to wage war after World War II and whose past record of aggression has pacifists worried about giving a greater role for the military.

Under situations of armed attacks, for instance, the bills would allow the state to boost the duties of Japan’s Self Defence Forces (SDF), created after Japan’s defeat in World War II and designed to prevent military aggression in the future.

The discussion around the bills underlines the rising sense of insecurity in Japan, given North Korea’s nuclear programme and concerns about possible military action by the United States against Pyongyang. Sentiment has also been growing in recent years that Japan should learn to look more after its own security and less on Washington.

"The U.S. victory in Iraq has ushered in a sober mood in Japan,” says international relations expert Takashi Inoguchi of Tokyo University.”There is the realisation that Japan must gear up to meet growing U.S. conservatism affecting the world. The new laws are aimed at meeting the new challenge," he says.

The bills are expected to be discussed in the next two weeks, after which the Diet session ends Jun. 18.

A lot of the debate centres around the proposal by Japan’s ruling coalition to make a distinction in the amended bills between two kinds of situations ”military attack situations" and "predictable military attack situations”.

The first would allow the Diet, as the parliament is called, to mobilise the SDF when the country faces "actual military strikes or apparent dangers", and the second would allow the state to have it on standby.

In a move that highlights the hardening of the public mood in Japan, the lower house of parliament, following support from the largest opposition party, the Social Democrats, approved the bills on Thursday last week.

The approval was unprecedented. It marked the first time since World War II that Japan’s largest opposition party voted with the government on national security issues.

"The contingency laws indicate the massive changes in the international situation. Japan’s security is inseparably intertwined with that of the international community and there is no need to doubt the wisdom,” the ‘Yomiuri’ newspaper said after the approval.

A lot of Japan’s fears stem from instability in the Korean peninsula, marking a change in mood from the cautious optimism just months ago when North Korea admitted to its kidnapping of Japanese nationals, long a sore point between the two countries.

These days, Japan is worried about how North Korea’s admission of a secret nuclear weapons programme will play out and fears that it may prod the U.S. government, just as it attacked Iraq, to take military action against Pyongyang.

Defence analysts here have not ruled out Washington taking military action against North Korea, a situation that they say would put fresh demands on Japan to extend its support to its long-time security ally, the United States.

Indeed, Takashi Ikagawa, spokesman for Peace Forum, a peace organisation that claims more than 2 million members, argues that the laws would pave the way for Japan to be involved in a U.S. led war in North Korea.

"Nothing is more disastrous for Japan if this should happen," he says. ”Asia has not forgiven Japan for its brutal colonisation of China, the Korean peninsula and most of South-east Asia. Japan should steer clear and engage in diplomatic negotiation in international politics.”

While the bills are considered necessary by many in these restive times, their expected passage into law is also creating concern among the Japanese.

The ‘Asahi’ newspaper notes that there is no geographic limit to the use of the legislation. "This means that should the SDF be attacked while engaged in rear-echelon support of the U.S. forces far away from Japan, the attack might be interpreted as a military emergency that justifies the invocation of the military emergency legislation," the newspaper said last week.

A military emergency, especially if invoked under questionable circumstances, sounds too much like Japan’s draconian military rule of its neighbours decades ago, says Sawako Atsuru, 72.

Atsuru says the new legislation smacks of the dawning of a new Japan, where power can be controlled by the SDF during emergencies a situation that may see the country engaging in war. "I lived in Manchuria that was under Japanese military rule for 13 years, and I witnessed Japanese imperialism in China. I never want that repeated," she says.

Public polls reflect this nervousness. The results of a survey released on May 10 by Japan News Network showed that 40 percent were against the bills, and 45 percent said they were ‘unsure" or preferred diplomatic option to war.

A major issue for peace activists is the protection of human rights during an emergency. The contingency bills, points out Ikagawa, could force civilians to participate in or support a war that the SDF is involved in, even if they oppose it.

The Peace Forum is now campaigning for grassroots-level engagement in a bid to counter the growing acceptance of a military approach to security concerns in North-east Asia. Seminars and demonstrations with South Korean groups are being planned to oppose a possible U.S. military attack on North Korea.