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The battle over the 'peace
constitution'
By Axel Berkofsky
Japan wants to become "normal" and is getting
serious about revising its "peace constitution" that
occupying US forces drafted more than half a century
ago. That is the message coming from an interim report
on constitutional revision recently published by the
House of Representatives' Research Commission on the
Constitution.
The commission was established in
January 2000 after the ruling Liberal Democrats, the
country's conservative press and the Japanese defense
establishment decided finally to assign Japan some
responsibility in regional and global security matters
to get rid of what they deemed Japan's "military
laughing stock" image.
Revising or abolishing
the war-renouncing Article 9 of the constitution to
enable the armed forces to execute the right to
collective self-defense is the core issue of the
commission's 700-page report that went before parliament
recently.
Debates on Japan's self-imposed ban to
execute the right to collective self-defense have
dominated the country's security policy in recent years,
but many critics in Japan claim that further discussions
are a waste of time now that the military is already
executing this right by participating in the US-led war
against terrorism.
"The interim report is hardly
more than an extensively long summary of what the
Japanese public knew anyway," commented the Yomiuri
Shimbun, Japan's biggest newspaper, which hammers out
one editorial after the other explaining why Japan can't
go on hiding itself behind an "out-of-date peace
constitution" forever.
"Two and a half years of
constitutional research and nothing but a couple of
recommendations," complains the paper, saying that a
report summarizing the advantages of constitutional
revision is not good enough if the country is serious
about putting its "one-country pacifism" to rest for
good.
Japan's Communist Party, on the other
hand, wants to hang on to Japan's constitution as it is
and calls the lengthy report "very unkind to readers",
fearing that it will turn Japan from pacifist to
belligerent before the general public has even made it
through the introduction of the 700-page document.
Revising Japan's constitution any time soon,
however, seems to be next to impossible since it
requires a two-thirds majority in both chambers of
parliament and a referendum-backed go-ahead from the
public.
"It takes at least another 10-15 years
to change the sacred cows of our constitution unless
Prime Minister Koizumi can convince political allies and
the opposition to throw all of their fundamental
political principles overboard," maintains a Japanese
political observer.
The New Komeito, the
smallest coalition partner of the ruling bloc led by
Junichiro Koizumi's Liberal Democrats, does not seem
sure what to say about constitutional revision.
"Though the points of the debates have become
clearer, we have not reached the stage of determining
the direction of the discussions," said a panel member
from New Komeito, indicating that the findings of the
700-page report did not really help the undecided.
The Japanese Supreme Court, too, has not not
been overly helpful in solving Japan's legal dilemma
over the past 50 years and has yet to come up with a
verdict on the constitutionality of the country's armed
forces. The court's lack of enthusiasm for taking up the
debate might be forgiven since finding a plausible
explanation for why Japan can maintain armed forces
equipped with a US$50 billion budget when Article 9 of
the constitution prohibits the country from having any
military at all might be too difficult for even the
country's best judges.
The government apparently
does not see the need for any juridical advice on the
matter, claiming that Japan is only executing the right
to individual, and not collective, self-defense when
fighting international terrorism alongside the United
States and other allies.
The report of the
Research Commission on the Constitution is unlikely to
add to the quality of constitutional debates in Japan,
which are commonly described as "incomprehensible" and
hard to follow by the majority of lawmakers themselves.
This seems to be more good news for Koizumi and his
strategy to change the interpretation of the
constitution.
After insisting for months that
the constitution and the current version of Japan's
anti-terrorism law do not authorize Japan to support the
United States in a military strike against Iraq, Koizumi
announced this week that Japan is now willing to
dispatch supplies and high-tech Aegis warships toward
the Arabian Sea should the US attack Iraq. Apparently
the Japanese defense establishment has more than war
with Iraq in mind as it seeks to change the fundamentals
of Japanese security policy. On Tuesday, newly appointed
Defense Agency chief Shigeru Ishiba urged the government
to commit itself more visibly to jointly developing a
regional missile defense system with the United States,
moving beyond the research phase and on to the
development phase soon.
Under a bilateral accord
reached in September 1998, Japan and the US are
conducting a joint study on a system to protect Japanese
and US forces deployed in the country from medium-range
ballistic missiles.
"The missile defense system
is nothing but a posture meant exclusively for
self-defense," Ishiba said, asking the government to
stop worrying about the right to collective self-defense
when enabling the country to defend itself from a North
Korean missile attack is the real issue.
Many
politicians outside the Defense Agency and some within
government, however, still claim that Japan's refusal to
execute the right to collective self-defense is exactly
what has kept Japan from committing itself yet to more
than paying the bill for joint US-Japanese research on
missile defense.
US pressure to keep Japanese
money flowing, however, might be welcome if Japan also
gets its hand on the system in the end, suspects Roger
Buckley, professor of history of international relations
at the International Christian University in Tokyo.
"The US has long been pushing Japan regarding
missile defense, or so we are told. It is, however,
always useful for the Japanese defense establishment
seeming to be responding to outside pressure," he said,
indicating that the Japanese military is eager to see
the system deployed on Japanese territory sooner rather
than later.
Revising the Japanese constitution,
dispatching high-tech warships in support of the US
military and plans to cooperate further with the United
States in developing a regional missile defense system -
is Japan eager to become a full-grown US military ally
ready to support the United States attacking terrorists
and evil-doer nations preemptively?
Neither
ruled that out nor count on it just yet, was Koizumi's
answer when asked in parliament whether Japan is
prepared to support a US preemptive military strike
against Iraq.
"I would like to refrain from
commenting on what I think about a preemptive attack at
this stage when no action has been taken yet," he said
in parliament, turning to his familiar tactic of being
as vague as possible when a clear-cut point of view is
what is required.
"Typical for our prime minister,"
complained Takako Doi, leader of the Social Democratic
Party, claiming that "it will not make any sense to hear
what you think about a preemptive attack after the US
has attacked Iraq".
For Koizumi, however, it
seems confirmed that he remains as good as ever at
political U-turns and unpleasant surprises on Japan's
security policy agenda.
(©2002 Asia Times Online
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