COMMENTARY 'We the Japanese
people' By Hikari Agakimi
"How can defeat in one war suppress for so
long Japan's samurai spirit?" intoned George
Liska, a European-born American theorist of
international politics. Yet Japan's current
diplomatic rift with China over historical justice
- Japan's inability to bring satisfactory closure
to the memory of empire and war - propagates a
nebulous image of lurking virulent nationalism.
A New York Times editorial cautioned that
Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso "has been
neither honest nor wise in the inflammatory
statements he has been making about Japan's
disastrous era of militarism, colonialism and war
crimes that culminated in the Second World War".
More than a half-century of
Japanese pacifism is
somehow not to be believed.
Japan began
anew in 1945 with an intense popular fear and
hatred of war. Thenceforth, several generations of
Japanese have lived with the consensus that never
again will their country be a cause of war, and
the country in effect withdrew from the world of
international power politics - this has been
Japan's way of repenting for war and empire.
Opinion polls suggest Japan is still bereft of
state-centered patriotism.
Pundits in
Japan are remarking on the rise of assertive
nationalism among the young. Older Japanese,
though mostly born after the war, cannot
completely dissociate the national flag from the
image of militarist Japan, and they are struck by
- even envious of - the carefree attitude with
which the young wave the flag at international
sporting events.
Yet a 2005 survey of
high-school students found that only 13% feel
pride when they see the national flag. In
comparison, the figure for American students was
55%, and for Chinese students 50%. Japanese
students of a society deeply uncomfortable with
the militarist past are not properly given modern
history lessons, but their sentiments carry
society's pacifistic impulse.
Reviving
patriotism The conservative ruling Liberal
Democratic Party (LDP) shows impatience with the
condition of Japanese patriotism. The party is in
the midst of amending for the first time the basic
law on education, written during the US military
occupation (1945-52) as part of the US-dictated
democratic reform. The party wants to include
"love of country" in the public school curriculum.
While the LDP has in mind straightforward
patriotism, of pledging-allegiance-to-the-flag
kind, the coalition partner in government, the
Komeito Party, will not have it. Komeito is backed
by a Buddhist organization whose leaders were
persecuted by the "thought police" during World
War II. Komeito remains staunchly suspicious of
state-centered patriotism.
So the
compromise bill speaks of instilling respect for
the country's history and tradition, as well as
those of other nations, and nurturing the spirit
of international peace and development. "What do
you feel proud about Japan?" the people have been
asked over the years in opinion polls conducted by
the prime minister's office. The top three and
dominant answers are long history and tradition,
beautiful nature, and culture and the arts.
The education bill, then, confirms public
sentiment, despite Liberal Democratic intent. And
the elements of popular pride of country are
self-referential and not the aggressive
flag-waving kind. In the same series of
opinion polls, only 3-4% of the respondents find
pride in the unity and coherence of the people,
which is a source of LDP concern. "Do you love
your country?" the people are also asked. Those
who answer "yes" hover around 50%, while about 40%
say, "I don't know." At the same time, nearly 80%
respond that there is need to nurture love of
country. A large proportion of Japanese find
something amiss, but what they want exactly is
unclear. Still, popular reaction to the
government's recent handling of China offers
hints.
The China threat A
growing number of Japanese officials have been
characterizing China's military buildup as a
considerable threat to Japan. And Sino-Japanese
diplomatic relations have been at their worst
since the 1972 rapprochement. At issue is Prime
Minister Junichiro Koizumi's annual visit to
Yasukuni Shrine, where the spirits of modern
Japan's war dead are enshrined, including those of
14 judged to be war criminals by the Allied Powers
after World War II.
A variety of opinion
polls show the vast majority of Japanese concerned
about their country's relations with China.
Reacting to media reports on anti-Japanese
demonstrations in China, those who hold
unfavorable feelings toward China have surged to
more than 70%. At the same time, a March public
opinion poll conducted by the Foreign Ministry
found that 78% of the respondents saw the need to
improve relations with China.
And in an
April poll conducted by the conservative national
daily Yomiuri, 61% blamed Koizumi for the
deteriorating relationship. Even among those who
support the prime minister's honoring the
country's war dead at Yasukuni, 43% found Koizumi
responsible for perverting affairs with China.
Most agree that the problem of Sino-Japanese
relations is the Yasukuni visits and the related
issue of the history of Japanese aggression. In
short, the people are not looking to embrace a
confrontational nationalism.
Yet nobody,
including members of the LDP, really likes having
to deal with the country's past because it goes
against everything they believe now. They hope
time will eventually erase the memories. The net
result is Sino-Japanese gridlock. Then 47% of the
Japanese think that relations with China will
improve over the next 20 years, while 11% think
that relations will worsen, according to the
Foreign Ministry poll. The people are relatively
sanguine.
The major national dailies,
conservative and liberal, have counseled the prime
minister to cease the Yasukuni visits. Public
evaluation of the five years of Koizumi's foreign
policy is low. The people are more moderate than
their government, but they support Koizumi's LDP
because it gets the job of government done. Given
the recent revival of the long-ailing Japanese
economy, especially, the Koizumi government enjoys
a remarkable 70% approval rate.
Japanese
society is rapidly aging, and the population is
shrinking. What the people care about are social
security, medical care, neighborhood safety and
the like. An aggressive nationalism of geriatrics
would indeed be a historic feat.
Threat
of war The simplest indicator of
nationalism is people's attitude toward national
security. Forty-five percent of Japanese today
sense the danger of being involved in war. The
figure is the highest it has been since the Prime
Minister'S Office began a survey series in 1969.
The perceived primary threat is not rising China
but North Korea - since 1998, anywhere between 57%
and 74% of the people have responded so.
In 1998, North Korea test-fired a missile
that flew over Japan, and that lone missile
fundamentally altered the public's threat
perception. Poll results prior to the missile
firing had found that a larger proportion of the
people felt no danger of war than those who did -
the figures in the 1996 survey were 30% and 21%
respectively. By 2003, with the pattern reversed,
43% felt danger while 11% did not.
Foreign-policy officials generally admit
that the current dispatch of troops to Iraq - the
first time Japanese soldiers had ventured abroad
since 1945 without United Nations cover - would
have been difficult without the North Korean
missile factor. The Japanese foreign-policy circle
is seeking to strengthen the alliance with the US
as a hedge against the more fluid and
unpredictable post-Cold War international world
and, in the neighborhood, against the rise of
China and anxious North Korea.
The
Japanese government has been preparing the legal
groundwork for possible collective security action
with the US. Japan is in the process of
reacquiring the use of force as an instrument of
foreign policy.
But in a survey this year
by the Prime Minister'S Office, only 19% responded
that they feel the danger of war because Japan's
military preparedness is inadequate. And 17% found
the cause of danger in the US alliance, that Japan
will be dragged into America's wars.
Overall, as it has been during the Cold
War, the majority of the Japanese public is
satisfied with the existing security arrangement,
a combination of the US security guarantee and the
Japanese Self-Defense Force that is proscribed
from going to battle outside of Japanese territory
- and doing no more and no less.
The
Japanese government, wanting to do more, is
cooperating with America's global military
transformation process and has agreed to relocate
US forces within Japan. "Not in my back yard!" has
been the outcry of all the municipalities
concerned. More than 70% of the US forces in Japan
are now in the tiny island prefecture of Okinawa,
close to Taiwan and far from the Japanese
mainland.
Okinawa is in essence one big
military base, and Okinawa's burden has made the
US military practically invisible to the rest of
happily pacifistic Japan. The national government
now intends to spread the responsibility of
hosting the US military and thereby raise the
level of national-security consciousness. Judging
by local opposition, the national government has
opened a Pandora's box. Nationalism of the
military kind remains a hard sell, notwithstanding
the increased possibility of war that the people
say they feel.
The problem with
America The United States is the final
guarantor of Japan's national security. The US has
been by far the favorite country of the Japanese,
except at the height of the Vietnam War when
Switzerland, with a peaceful image, ranked No 1.
Makoto Kobayashi, an
international-relations scholar at Ritsumeikan
University, says the US is the foreign country he
likes and hates the most. He is attracted by its
liberalism and repelled by its militarism.
The United States allows the Japanese to
live with an ambiguous sense of national security
- critical of US military power while depending on
it, possessing a military but proscribing its use
of force, suspicious of its neighbors but not
coming up with constructive policies to ameliorate
relations. The US as the world's benign hegemon is
for the Japanese most desirable.
There may
be those who find Japanese ambiguity ignoble, but
nobility is an aristocratic virtue, the stuff of
the samurai, and the vast majority of the Japanese
are of peasant origin. Like the peasant characters
in Akira Kurosawa's film Seven Samurai, the
weak must do what it must, and survive by cunning
wit. Heroism and moral clarity are not of the
peasant.
After the attacks in the US of
September 11, 2001, many Japanese feel something
dangerous unfolding in President George W Bush's
America. The ineptitude and insensitivity of the
US authorities in dealing with Hurricane Katrina
helped confirm the Japanese trepidation.
One survey revealed that 22% of the
Japanese favored Bush's re-election, while 56%
wished for a president John Kerry. Just as Beijing
is waiting for Koizumi to step down in September
to begin a new diplomacy, many in Japan are
waiting for the next US president to restore a
benignly hegemonic and noble United States.
We the Japanese people Japan is
in the midst of a grand social transformation.
Political manners, economic rules, patterns of
everyday life and international relations are all
in flux. The last time Japan saw change of great
magnitude was after the defeat in World War II by
US design. This time there is no blueprint, and
the Japanese are groping for a vision. What do the
Japanese want?
The ruling LDP wants to
write a new Japanese constitution. For six
decades, not a single word of the US-authored
constitution has been amended. At issue is Article
9, in which the Japanese people "forever renounce"
the threat or use of force to settle international
disputes and the possession of a military. The LDP
wants to recognize properly the existing
Self-Defense Force and restore "normalcy" to the
Japanese state by reacquiring the sovereign right
of defense.
Furthermore, there is the
LDP's conservative tendency to see the
constitution as a tool of rule. The party has
never been comfortable with the liberal assumption
of the US-authored constitution, which is a
guarantee of the rights and liberties of citizens.
The party wants to write a constitution that
includes a set of duties and obligations of
citizens to the state, including patriotism.
According to a survey this month by the
liberal national daily Asahi, there is now a
slight majority of 55% favoring constitutional
amendment. The most enthusiastic constitutional
revisionists are women in their 30s; 67% of them
say yes. They are on the whole supportive of the
pacifistic spirit of Article 9, and they want to
add more rights and liberties to the current
document that begins, "We the Japanese people ..."
Moreover, 72% of the people say
constitutional revision should not be trusted to
the lawmakers. Japan is in for an interesting
time.
