21 May 2015
SAMURAI RISING
by Neil Tidmarsh
Should we be worried or reassured by Japan’s move away from its ‘peace clause’?
This week, the deputy commander of the Royal Marines, Brigadier Richard Spencer, has been advising Japan on the creation of a marine commando force. Last week, Japan announced that it is hoping to sell its advanced Soryu (‘Blue Dragon’) submarine to the Australian navy, and the country’s first international arms fair has just opened. Last month, the opposition leader, Katsuya Okada, warned that Japan is in danger of stumbling towards war with China. How and why is this happening in a country whose post-World War Two constitution prevents it from participating in wars and maintaining armed forces, and where a series of rules introduced between 1967 and 1976 developed into an arms export embargo?
Following Japan’s defeat in World War II, the Allies encouraged the country to turn its back on militarism and to embrace pacifism. Japan accepted Article Nine – the ‘peace clause’ which renounces war and armed forces – of its new constitution, and has enjoyed a peace dividend ever since. It has, however, maintained a Self-Defence Force; this was initially a kind of para-military police-force for civil defence in case it was attacked by a foreign power, but it has grown into what is in reality an army, with an air-force and a navy equal if not superior to most others in the region. And in recent years the prime minister Shinzo Abe’s right-wing nationalist government has been removing the pacifist obstacles in the way of the SDF’s operation as an effective armed force. In April 2014 the government overturned the ban on arms exports. In July 2014, it approved a reinterpretation of the peace clause to give more powers to the SDF, allowing it to defend Japan’s allies if war is declared on them. Last month, Shinzo Abe suggested that Article Nine could be dropped within four years. This week his cabinet approved laws which would allow Japanese troops to fight with allies overseas.
These measures have not been universally popular, inside or outside the country. Many Japanese are still pacifists, and anti-militaristic protesters have demonstrated outside Mr Abe’s office. Some regard the changes as illegitimate, since the prime minister circumvented Japan’s constitutional amendment procedure (an amendment to the constitution would require a two-thirds majority and a referendum). China and Korea – countries which have been victims of Japanese militarism in the past – have reacted angrily. They are still sensitive to the suffering they experienced when invaded by Japan during the war: this week, at a conference in New York on the Non-Proliferation Treaty, they accused Japan of using the atomic bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima to present itself as the victim rather than the aggressor; and China opposed a Japanese application for an archive of documents relating to kamikaze pilots to be given UN heritage status, on the grounds that it would glorify Japanese military aggression.
Of course, it is China’s present actions rather than its past suffering which shed most light on the issue. Shinzo Abe’s motivation includes matters of national self-respect; his nationalist government believes that a country should have armed forces as a matter of principle, and should be free to use them, to fight wars in its own interests and to shoulder international responsibilities such as peacekeeping and disaster relief; and that a full engagement in the international arms market – promoting Japanese exports and increasing joint research with Japan’s allies – would be good for the country’s economy and security. But most of all, the Japanese government is motivated by China’s increasingly assertive presence and threatening actions in the disputed waters and territories in the area. The Japanese control of the Senkanku Islands in the East China Sea, uninhabited but navigationally important and with potential oil reserves, is disputed by China; Chinese ships and planes have been probing the waters and airspace around them for the last three years. In recent months, China has embarked on land-reclamation and island building projects to create naval bases and runways in the South China Seas.
While China has no real tradition or history of militarism or military aggression, such actions are nevertheless clearly provocative. They have certainly worried Japan and her allies. This week, the US defence secretary, Ash Carter, announced the intention to send a naval presence to the South China Seas to challenge China’s assertions there, and the US defence department assistant secretary for Asian and Pacific security affairs, David Shear, told the Senate foreign relations committee that long-range B-1 bombers and surveillance aircraft will also be sent to the area. Last month, SDF officers took part in the Nato exercise Joint Warrior as observers, where a force of 13000 from 13 countries simulated amphibious landings on Scotland’s west coast. And now Britain is helping the SDF to develop an amphibious rapid reaction force of its own along the lines of the Royal Marines.
Britain should find it reassuring that one of its allies appears to be willing and eager to shoulder its military responsibilities. Whether we should be worried about where those joint responsibilities might lead us depends on whether attempts at deterrent are more likely to destabilise the situation in south east Asia than stabilise it. But it seems that Japan’s current inability to defend itself – a weakness encouraging another power to flex its muscles – is contributing to the regional instability in the first place. That perhaps is cause enough to worry for the time being and reason enough to accept Shinzo Abe’s attempts to free his country’s hands.
