Last week, Japan’s upper chamber of parliament approved new guidelines to allow the country’s military “to engage in overseas combat assignments under certain circumstances.” This decision constitutes a radical reinterpretation of the country’s constitution, allowing Japan’s army to reenter the realm of international conflict for the first time in more than 60 years. The legislation will allow the Japanese military to “provide logistical support and, in certain circumstances, armed backup in international conflicts.”
The bill marks a significant change from the country’s foreign policy of the last half century. Since the end of World War II, Japan has remained a formally pacifist country. The country’s pacifist stance is articulated explicitly in its constitution. Not only is the text of the document, as a whole, replete with language expressing a desire for the maintenance of peace, but a “renunciation of war” is explicitly stated in Chapter II, Article 9. It reads, “[T]he 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…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.”
This being said, in 1954, Japan – with the encouragement of the United States – established the Japan Self-Defense Forces (SDF), which has essentially occupied the role of a military in the country. However, despite the SDF, Japan has not had a military capable of engaging in international conflicts since the end of World War II.
The constitution’s clear and unequivocal antiwar language is a direct product of the United States’ postwar involvement in the restructuring of the Japanese state. Occupation leaders, led by American General Douglas MacArthur, held the perspective that Japan’s political, economic, and social structures were fundamentally flawed and had to be reformed to transform the country into a democracy.
Disarming Japan served the United States’ interests in keeping Japan under its influence and focusing on the country’s internal reconstruction. The American design for Japan was memorialized in a constitution written in 1947 by MacArthur’s appointed committees, which is arguably the most significant legacy of US occupation.
Despite its unconventional and arguably undemocratic origins, this constitution has played a crucial role in shaping modern Japan. Beyond its legal ramifications, the document’s values have been deeply internalized by the Japanese people, most notably its antiwar, pacifist ideology, which has become a pillar of Japanese national identity as a whole.
As a result, the new legislation is hugely contentious – so contentious in fact that a physical scuffle broke out in the Japanese parliament as “opposition politicians tried to prevent voting by piling on top of the committee chairman and wresting away his microphone.” In the past few months, as the bill has moved forward, huge protests have shaken the country, attracting thousands of people. Protesters not only feel that the bill is unconstitutional, but are also calling on Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to resign. When asked about the new bill, 63.1 percent of respondents expressed opposition, and only 13.2 percent found Abe’s rationale for the bills sufficient. Mizuho Fukushima, of the opposition Social Democratic Party, argued that signing the bill would be equivalent to becoming “accomplices to murder.”
In spite of this deep and widespread popular opposition, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his coalition have pushed the bill through Japan’s parliament as part of a “more muscular stance that includes a move last year to lift restrictions on exports of Japanese-made weaponry.” Prime Minister Abe is driving this shift as part of his commitment to reshape Japan’s national identity – notably by “stripping it of what he sees as a self-destructive pacifism.” Instead, he is determined to pioneer a new approach, which has been branded “proactive pacifism,” after Abe announced at a United Nations General Assembly meeting that the country would “newly bear the flag of proactive contribution to peace.”
Hints to Abe’s intentions with current policy can be found as far back as a 2004 book in which he advocated more military engagement. According to Abe, “If [the] Japanese don’t shed blood, we cannot have an equal relationship with America.” Indeed, the relationship between Japan and the United States is a key concern for Abe, as the bill is largely a response to “Guidelines for Japan-US Defense Cooperation” agreed upon by the two countries in April. The parameters of the new legislation revise the current Law on a Situation in the Areas Surrounding Japan – now allowing Japan to support the United States beyond areas exclusively close to Japan – and also allow the SDF to support the militaries of other countries as needed. The United States has been enthusiastic about Abe’s plans to strengthen the Japanese military and has backed his initiative to reinterpret the constitution.
The timing of this bill is also significant in light of the multiple regional threats perceived by Japan. First, relations between China and Japan are growing increasingly strained over a territorial dispute about islands in the East China Sea; Japan is “concerned over China’s military build-up and aggressive patrolling around the disputed islands.” What’s more, in early September, China put on a “lavish” military parade commemorating its defeat of Japan in World War II and “showcasing its military might on an unprecedented scale” – arguably in part a show of strength towards Japan.
Second, North Korea’s military has also aggressively expanded its military under the leadership of Kim Jong-un. Japan’s 2015 defense white paper asserts that Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons development “poses a grave threat to Japan’s security and significantly impairs stability in Northeast Asia and the international community.”
While Japanese unease in the face of these developments is understandable, the new legislation is still very problematic.
According to Kerry Smith, a professor of history at Brown University whose research focuses on the making of modern East Asia, the most evident result is that the bill drastically changes the role the Japanese military can play in international conflicts. Although it is unlikely to do so in the short term, the government now has the ability to commit Japanese troops to participate in international missions; Therefore, the legislation’s political effects will only fully come to the fore at a future point.
In addition, the event calls into question the legitimacy of the legislative and judicial processes in Japan. How is it that Abe was able to push a bill through parliament with which the majority of the country disagrees? Professor Smith emphasizes this concern: “What does it mean that most of the constitutional scholars have come out and said that this is blatantly unconstitutional? We see that the process itself has turned out to become very important and worrisome, not just that the Japanese government is doing something it hasn’t done before.”
According to Smith, the process by which future military action will be authorized and justified will also prove significant. “It will be an important question of who decides whether a threat meets the standards laid out by the legislation.” That the majority of Japanese citizens oppose the decision to pass the bill – enabled by Abe’s ruling coalition in parliament – and the content of the legislation suggest that future conflict within the country over this issue is unavoidable.
Going forward, as the legislation makes the Japanese military more significant, it will also introduce a number of related concerns. For one, military funding will need to be ramped up, a demand that already surfaced in August, when Japan’s Ministry of Defense asked for an increased budget. If approved, the proposed defense budget would be the biggest defense budget in 14 years. In addition, a larger and more active military will bring the question of conscription back into the conversation.
In sum, as Professor Smith further points out, “It’s not just that Japan is going down a road that no one else has gone down, but for Japan itself this is a very big shift.” How does the reprised role of the military fit with the values that have become so intrinsic to Japan as a country? Regardless of the answer, the country will continue to face questions that will challenge some of the explicit vows and values articulated in its constitution and embedded in the national identity it has cultivated in the past 60 years.
Photo: U.S. Department of Defense