POLITICS-JAPAN: Debate of Changing Constitution Gathers New Steam

By Suvendrini Kakuchi Reprint | | Print |

Suvendrini Kakuchi

TOKYO, Jan 6 2004 (IPS) - As it prepares for the second dispatch of military troops to Iraq next week, Japan’s long simmering debate on changing its post-war ‘Peace’ constitution, written by the U.S. occupation forces in 1947, is gathering new steam.

“It makes sense to change the current Constitution in Japan, which is now a rich and peaceful country and playing a global role in Iraq’s reconstruction. This is the most pressing national issue for the new year,” says Toru Hayano, a well-known television commentator.

Japan’s deployment of troops to Iraq – the largest contingent of Self-Defence Forces to be sent overseas – follows a controversial order given by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi on Dec. 26 in response to a request from the United States.

Mindful that the decision has been opposed by almost 80 percent of the public because of constitutional restrictions, Koizumi is pushing a 2005 deadline, the 50th anniversary of his conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), for re-writing Japan’s Constitution and changing the provision that renounces war by the country – Article 9.

The imposition of a defence posture on Japan is also why the closest thing it has to a military force is called the Self-Defence Forces.

This provision was meant to prevent a repeat of Japan’s military aggression and occupation of its neighbouring countries in the decades before 1945, when Allied forces defeated the country.

In July, a research project team completed a draft on amendments to the Constitution that includes the creation of new defence forces and a clear stipulation that Japan can exercise its right to collective self-defence.

“Unless the Constitution is revised, Japan will be unable to participate in multinational forces even if it gains a permanent seat in the U.N. Security Council,” Koizumi has said.

Analysts however, point out that the birth of a new Constitution would carry heavy political and psychological implications for the Japanese – many of whom are pacifists but where some do not acknowledge their country’s wartime atrocities, from forcing ‘comfort’ women’ into sexual slavery to its occupation of countries from China to the Philippines.

”There is much to consider when taking such a drastic step,” says Tetsuro Kato, a political scientist at Hitotsubashi University, citing Japan’s reluctance to confront its brutal colonisation of Asian countries even in the early 20th century, Tokyo’s heavy reliance on the United States, and overall contentment with post-war pacifism following its surrender after World War II in 1945.

For these reasons, Kato believes that moves to usher in a new era of military activism are a real risk – unless these are accompanied by a deeper soul-searching of Japan’s past and a national consensus on what taking on a heavier global responsibility means.

“Japan, reduced to rubble during the war, renounced war and promoted economic growth under the auspices of the Americans. A change towards promoting a military role smacks of the past and so must be approached cautiously,” he opines.

Editorial comments in the Japanese media also call for further debate.

The ‘Asahi’ newspaper, a major daily with liberal policies, noted in an editorial on Jan. 1 that Japan’s Constitution prohibits the dispatch of troops to conflicts abroad, making Koizumi’s decision on the issue a new chapter in the history of the country.

The newspaper criticises Koizumi, pointing to the risk of his getting Japan embroiled in unnecessary wars under ”arrogant U.S. leadership”.

On the other hand, conservative newspapers, such as the leading ‘Yomiuri Shimbun’, argues that a new constitution is long overdue given China’s military build-up and the threat of North Korean nuclear weapons and its missile programme aimed at Japan.

“Opposition to a new constitution against new hostilities in East Asia, represents a tendency to pursue peace at the expense of our obligation to defend global security. The nation should grow out of this mentality,” a ‘Yomiuri’ editorial said as early as Dec. 12.

Indeed, such concerns have already paved the way for Japanese leaders to embark on beefing up the country’s defences, such the introduction of a ballistic missile defence programme using U.S. missiles from fiscal year 2004.

In 1983, Tokyo partly lifted the constitutional ban on arms export and development when Japan agreed to join a study with the U.S. on missile technology programme.

Citing growing security worries, Japan’s Defence Agency has requested 1. 2 billion U.S. dollars for its fiscal 2004 budget, nine times more than the total spent from 1999 to 2003.

Japan’s younger generation, while wary of active participation in dangerous conflicts, has been to show cautious support towards boosting the country’s defence.

A survey conducted by ‘Yomiuri’ newspaper in September showed the Japanese divided roughly in half. Forty-seven percent backed the adoption of a new constitution without Article 9, most of those opposed belonging to people over 60 years or the generation born during the war.

A show of support for revising the constitution came on New Year’s Day when Koizumi took the unexpected step of visiting the Yasukuni Shrine, the controversial memorial site for Japan’s war dead including its Class A war criminals.

While China and South and North Korea, former colonies of Japan, expressed anger, Koizumi, who talked about peace during his visit, only asked his Asian neighbours to try to understand the Japanese culture of visiting Shinto shrines to mark seasonal celebrations.

Yasukuni remains a symbol of deep-rooted Japanese conservatism aimed at restoring what its proponents consider national pride. But critics look at it with disfavour, recalling that it was Japan’s plans for an ‘East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere’ under the leadership of its Emperor that paved the way for the bloody colonisation of China, the Korean peninsula and most of South-east Asia.

The controversial and emotional debate, explains Hayano, outlines a crucial year for Japan this year. “Japan stands at a crossroads; defining its military ambitions as a tool for world peace while regaining its international leadership or repeating its past mistake by embarking on an ambitious and dangerous path to dictating the world,” he says.