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The end of pacifist Japan?

Published 25 Aug 2016

On Tuesday 23 August our guest at Glover Cottages was Walter Hamilton, for 11 years the ABC’s North East Asia correspondent in Tokyo. Just returned there, where he had observed recent elections, Walter was in conversation with AIIA NSW president Richard Broinowski about possible constitutional changes in Japan. An audience of around 70 included our patron, NSW governor David Hurley AC, attended.

Walter said that Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution forever renounces war as a sovereign right, and stipulates that Japan will never maintain land, sea and air forces. Although not one word of the Constitution has been amended, Walter said Article 9 looks increasingly absurd and no longer reflects the reality that Japan has among the world’s largest and most sophisticated armed forces. Prime minister Shinzo Abe now wants to amend Article 9 and make Japan a ‘normal’ country able to send its armed forces anywhere in the world to defend Japanese interests. This is not new. Calls to change or replace the US-drafted  Constitution began on the right of Japanese politics as soon as it was promulgated in 1947. However, moderates and progressives, including a majority of Japan’s population, embraced it and still do not want changes, least of all to Article 9. But pressure by conservatives in and outside the Diet to do so continues.

Wally Hamilton

Wally recalled that since his second election as prime minister in 2012, Abe has already ‘reinterpreted’ the Constitution to increase Japan’s capacity to take part in peace-keeping operations, and to allow Japan to exercise ‘collective self-defence’ beyond its borders. This can involve the defence of a friendly country if Japan is also threatened. Furthermore, the far right in Japan, including the new governor of Tokyo, believe the Pacific war was in defence of Japan, and want to overturn convictions for war crimes, censor school text books, and re-establish Shintō as a state religion. The Liberal Democratic Party has secured the two-thirds support in both the upper and lower houses of the Diet that are necessary to put a referendum to the people to change the Constitution. But Wally noted that a majority of the Japanese public vociferously oppose such amendments, and since November 2015, when huge public protests were held, support for Constitutional revision has fallen.

Another factor concerns emperor Akihito, who has an unprecedentedly social activist agenda. He wants to abdicate in favour of his son, crown prince Naruhito, who he hopes will continue his work.  Public opinion is generally sympathetic to the emperor’s wish, and to his agenda.  However Wally speculated that Abe might resolve the succession question first, get the people used to Constitutional change, and after discussion with the minor parties, get an agreed text for change to Article 9 in defiance of public opinion.

But Abe would have to negotiate these developments at a challenging time. In spite of Japan’s investments in high technology developments in aerospace, superfast trains, and anti-missile defence, the economy is stagnant. And tensions are likely to continue between Japan and China over islands in the East China Sea, where Japan (and the United States) want Australia to join their effort to contain China. Australia, however, is reluctant to be dragged into a conflict with its largest trading partner.

Report by Dr Alison Broinowski