Hawkish Abe wants to change Constitution

Liberal Democratic Party leader Shinzo Abe, the presumptive next prime minister, is a conservative hawk who openly proposes revising the war-renouncing Constitution to bolster Japan’s military capabilities.

Abe became Japan’s youngest postwar prime minister in September 2006, at age 52. After about a year in office, however, he abruptly stepped down, an exit he later attributed to an intestinal disease.

The manner of his resignation and his subsequent widespread image as a leader who abandoned the top post have dogged him in the years since. But Abe, 58, now says he has overcome the disease, ulcerative colitis, thanks to a new drug.

In September, he returned to the LDP helm, voicing his resolve to return Japan’s foreign policy to a strong footing amid soured ties with China and South Korea over competing territorial claims in the East China Sea and Sea of Japan.

Abe has expressed his readiness to rename the SDF as the National Defense Force through a constitutional amendment, and to enable Japan to exercise the right to collective self-defense, a use of force banned under the government’s traditional interpretation of the pacifist Constitution.

During his stint as prime minister, he was credited with helping to thaw Sino-Japanese relations by visiting Beijing soon after his inauguration, the first trip to China by a Japanese prime minister in five years. Bilateral ties had chilled over the repeated visits of his predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi, to the war-linked Yasukuni Shrine.

Abe also engineered changes to the Fundamental Law of Education to place a greater emphasis on instilling a sense of patriotism among students, enacted referendum procedures to facilitate constitutional amendments, and bumped up the Defense Agency to full ministry status to increase its clout inside the government.

But he drew criticism from abroad, particularly in South Korea, for denying there was any proof the Imperial army had coerced women and girls into sexual servitude. His remarks appeared to revise a 1993 statement by then-Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono, who acknowledged Japan’s forces had forced females to work at military brothels during the war and apologized to the victims, many of whom were from the Korean Peninsula.

The LDP suffered a crushing defeat in the July 2007 House of Councilors election, and the ruling coalition led by the party lost its majority in the upper chamber. Abe’s resignation as prime minister less than two months later paved the way for the LDP’s ouster from power in 2009 by at the hands of the Democratic Party of Japan.

Born into a family of prominent politicians, Abe’s political views were largely influenced by his grandfather, Nobusuke Kishi, a wartime Cabinet member who was detained as a suspected Class-A war criminal after the end of World War II. Kishi was never indicted or tried, and after his release from prison in 1948, he eventually went on to became prime minister.

Abe is eager to fulfill his grandfather’s dream of revising the Constitution, arguing it was drafted under the strong influence of the United States during the Allied Occupation.

While serving as deputy chief Cabinet secretary in 2002, Abe became involved in negotiations to resolve North Korea’s abductions of Japanese nationals in the 1970s and ’80s, gaining the spotlight with his tough stance toward Pyongyang.

He was appointed LDP secretary general the following year and, as Koizumi’s right-hand man, was promoted to chief Cabinet secretary in 2005, landing his first senior Cabinet post.

Abe has regularly visited Yasukuni Shrine, which enshrines 14 convicted or accused Class A war criminals along with the nation’s war dead. Though he did not visit the shrine in his official capacity as prime minister, he angered China and South Korea recently by visiting it after he became LDP chief. Many parts of Asia view the shrine as a symbol of Japan’s past militarism and aggression.

Kyodo Press, December 17, 2012
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20121217a9.html

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 72% of newly elected lawmakers want to revise war-renouncing Article 9 of Constitution

About 72 percent of 473 newly elected House of Representative lawmakers support the idea of revising war-renouncing Article 9 of the Constitution and 78 percent of the legislators say the government should change its constitutional interpretation that currently forbids Japan from exercising the right of collective self-defense, according to a survey conducted by the Mainichi Shimbun.

Based on the survey of candidates running in the Dec. 16 general election, the Mainichi Shimbun found that 342, or 72 percent of the 473 winners in the election, agreed with the idea of revising the pacifist Constitution. The approval of at least two-thirds of members of both houses of the Diet is needed to bring constitutional amendments before the Diet. Therefore the figure found in the survey meets the requirements of the lower chamber to initiate amendments to the Constitution.

The survey also found that 370, or 78 percent of the 473 newly elected legislators, want to change the government’s constitutional interpretation that currently forbids Japan from exercising the right of collective self-defense. Only 17 percent, or 82 of the 473 winners, think there is no need to change the interpretation.

With respect to the sensitive debate on whether to lift a self-imposed ban on Japan’s right to exercise collective self-defense, 93 percent of the newly elected lawmakers from the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) support the idea of reviewing the government’s constitutional interpretation. According to the survey, all of the newly elected lawmakers from the Japan Restoration Party (JRP) and 83 percent of lawmakers from Your Party think the constitutional interpretation should be reviewed.

The survey shows, on the other hand, that 87 percent of the newly elected lawmakers from New Komeito, which is expected to form a ruling coalition with the LDP, stand against reviewing the constitutional interpretation. As for the lawmakers from the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), 45 percent of them see no need to review the interpretation, while 39 percent think it should be reviewed.

A similar survey of the winners in the 2009 general election showed that 50 percent of them saw no need to change the constitutional interpretation of the right to collective self-defense, while 37 percent of them wanted the interpretation to be reviewed. The previous survey also showed 51 percent of legislators standing against revising Article 9 of the Constitution, while 34 percent of them were in favor of revising the pacifist clause. With the LDP scoring a landslide victory in the recent general election, the basic mentality shared by the newly elected lawmakers is a far cry from that of the winners of the 2009 general election.

In its election manifesto, the LDP pledged to take steps to allow Japan to exercise the right to collective self-defense. When LDP President Shinzo Abe was prime minister in 2007, he set forth four different scenarios in which Japan could exercise its right to collective self-defense, including a case in which Japan is escorting U.S. warships on the high seas. The new government led by Abe is likely to discuss the issue thoroughly.

Meanwhile, by political parties, the LDP tops the list of lawmakers in favor of revising Article 9 of the Constitution at 90 percent, followed by the JRP at 84 percent and Your Party at 78 percent. The survey shows that 63 percent of newly-elected DPJ lawmakers and 90 percent of New Komeito lawmakers stand against revising the war-renouncing clause.

The survey also shows that 429, or 91 percent of the 473 newly elected lawmakers, are in favor of revising the Constitution, while only 32 legislators, or 7 percent, oppose any move to revise the Constitution. All of the legislators from the Japanese Communist Party (JCP) and the Social Democratic Party (SDP) said “no” to all three questions.

The Mainichi Shimbun conducted a survey of candidates who planned to run in the Dec. 16 general election after Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda dissolved the lower chamber on Nov. 16. Of all the 480 winners in the lower house election, 473 of them responded to the survey. The response rate is 98.5 percent. Of all the respondents, 291 are from the LDP, 56 from the DPJ, 51 from the JRP, 31 from New Komeito, 18 from Your Party, nine from the Tomorrow Party of Japan, eight from the JCP, two from the SDP, one each from the New Party Daichi and the People’s New Party and five independents.

Mainichi Shimbun, December 18, 2012
http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20121218p2a00m0na011000c.html

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 Hawk’s comeback raises hope in U.S. for closer defense ties

WASHINGTON – The return of conservative Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has raised hopes in Washington for closer security ties, although U.S. officials hope he keeps a lid on his more strident views.

Abe is a champion of revising the post-World War II pacifist Constitution and may take shorter-term steps such as boosting defense spending and allowing greater military cooperation with the United States

His Liberal Democratic Party, which ruled almost continuously from 1955 until 2009, roared back Sunday with a crushing victory over the Democratic Party of Japan, which Abe accused of harming relations with the United States.

President Barack Obama’s relations with DPJ-led governments substantially improved after early friction, but Abe is seen as more supportive of U.S. force deployments and has vowed no compromise with China in the row over the disputed Senkaku Islands.

Michael Green, senior vice president for Asia at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Abe’s victory is a “net positive” for the United States and could end up stabilizing Japan-China ties.

“The view in Beijing is that their pressure tactics are working on Japan and I think it’s important to disabuse them of that,” he said.

Green, who served as the top Asia adviser to President George W. Bush, fears that a new team in the second Obama administration could follow a “simplistic media picture” of a more hawkish Japan and potentially isolate Abe.

“If the administration decides it has to somehow counter Japan’s shift to the right by brokering between Japan and China, it would not go well either in relations with Japan or China,” he said.

But Green said that U.S. priorities in Asia – particularly the relationship between allies Japan and South Korea – could face setbacks if Abe pursues a hard line over emotive history issues.

Abe, whose grandfather was arrested but not indicted as a World War II war criminal, has called in the past for rescinding Japan’s apology to wartime sex slaves, who are known euphemistically as “comfort women.”

But Abe, during his previous time as prime minister from 2006 to 2007, worked to repair ties with China and South Korea and avoided politically charged visits to Yasukuni Shrine, which honors 2.5 million Japanese war dead, including war criminals.

“There is a concern for U.S. policymakers that his revisionist inclinations will spark new tensions in the region, but his statements of late have at least tried to temper those anxieties,” said Weston Konishi, director of Asia-Pacific studies at the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis.

“I think the hope is that he’ll take a very responsible approach,” he said.

Abe will likely face domestic pressure not to antagonize neighbors. Japanese business leaders have been alarmed by tensions and Abe governs in a coalition with New Komeito, a Buddhist party with pacifist views.

Konishi said there are “probably some circles in town (Washington) that welcome” the return of familiar faces in the LDP but added that the Obama administration had developed a strong relationship with the DPJ.

Obama congratulated Abe and called the U.S.-Japan alliance “the cornerstone of peace and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific.” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Washington has “worked with Japanese governments of both parties for decades” and looks forward to working with Abe.

James Schoff, a former Pentagon official who is a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said that Abe’s effort on defense could be “a net benefit for everyone” if Japan complements the U.S.

“But if the focus is more toward building up offensive capabilities vis-a-vis China, that’s going to create probably more problems than it’s worth from a U.S. perspective,” he said.

Yukio Hatoyama, the first prime minister following the DPJ’s landmark 2009 win, resigned after clashing with the United States over the status of the controversial Futenma military base in Okinawa.

Relations improved after the round-the-clock U.S. response to last year’s tsunami and the Obama administration enjoyed strong ties with outgoing Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, who supported joining talks on the U.S.-backed Trans-Pacific Partnership.

The LDP has been divided on the emerging deal. The party relies on support from farmers, many of whom adamantly oppose foreign competition.

AFP-Jiji Press, December 19, 2012
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20121219a8.html

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