Military coup in Japan

[Magda Hassan]

Against the wishes of the vast majority of Japanese people the Abu government has abandoned the post war pacifist constitution and is now set on military expansion in the region. This has been at the behest of the US who plan to use Japan in the coming war against North Korea and China and ultimately Russia.

Some one remind me who 'won' WW2 again?

Japan P.M. confronts war-allergic public

Published : 2014-07-02 20:58
Updated : 2014-07-02 20:58

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's efforts to allow Japan to defend its allies are meeting opposition from a war-wary public, concerned that broadening the remit of the military could drag the country into a conflict after almost 70 years of peace.

With the cabinet agreeing to reinterpret the constitution to permit collective self-defense, Abe's government, which has a majority in both houses, plans to submit bills starting in the autumn specifying changes to the role of the Self-Defense Forces. Surveys show ordinary Japanese are increasingly concerned about his actions, raising the risk of slow progress through the Diet as lawmakers waver.

Public opposition is high despite China sparring with Japan over territory, beefing up its military presence in the region and calling Abe a trouble-maker. His move to reinterpret the pacifist Article 9 of the postwar constitution is seen as potentially opening the door to major changes to the defense forces.

"A lot of Japanese people think it's Article 9 that has brought them peace," said Andrew Horvat, a visiting professor at Josai International University in Chiba, who researches postwar reconciliation in Europe and Asia. "People identify with this and it's difficult to suddenly accept the idea that peace is purchased at a price ― and that price is vigilance and vigilance requires armed forces or a credible response to countries that don't buy into the idea of peace."

Two media surveys last weekend found half or more of respondents opposed collective self-defense, even with Abe speaking publicly numerous times to explain the rationale for the change. A man set himself on fire in in the busy shopping area of Shinjuku in central Tokyo on June 29 after making a speech opposing the change, while thousands demonstrated outside Abe's residence on June 30 and July 1. Police have given no details about the man's motives and his condition. Media coverage of the incident has been limited in Japan.

Media in Japan run daily stories on China's assertiveness and rising military power. Ships and planes regularly tail one another around disputed East China Sea islands known as Senkaku in Japanese and Diaoyu in Chinese and Japan has accused China of flying fighter jets within tens of meters of its surveillance planes in the area.

"Ever since I was a child I've thought of Article 9 as Japan's treasure," said Ryo Irie, 45, who runs a shop selling traditionally-made scissors in Fukuoka Prefecture, on the southern island of Kyushu which faces the East China Sea. He joined the June 30 Tokyo protest against the changes. "I heard a lot from my grandfather about the war. How he was in Manchuria and his superiors killed Chinese people. I learned about the importance of Article 9 through those tragic stories."

Abe pressed for the reinterpretation after shelving an effort to make it easier to actually amend the charter, a move that currently requires a two-thirds majority in both houses of parliament. That approach has not reassured the majority of the public and writing a new constitution remains the goal of his Liberal Democratic Party.

"The constitution is supposed to be a means for the people to restrain the government," Irie said. "He's trying to overturn that completely. This plan is a coup d'etat against the Japanese people."

Japan's armed forces have not fired a shot in battle since the war and the country has provided land and funds for U.S. military bases in return for the protection of its ally's "nuclear umbrella."

"By improving deterrence and contributing more to regional and global peace and stability, I believe we can better assure Japan's own peace and security," Abe said Tuesday in Tokyo. "We will continue to defend the pacifism contained in the constitution. There will be absolutely no change to the path of peace Japan has walked since the war. Instead, this will make that path even more certain."

U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said the change will make the U.S.-Japan alliance "more effective."

"This decision is an important step for Japan as it seeks to make a greater contribution to regional and global peace and security," Hagel said in a statement posted on the Department of Defense website. "The new policy also complements our ongoing efforts to modernize our alliance through the revision of our bilateral guidelines for defense cooperation."

China and South Korea, where resentment of Japan's past colonization runs deep, were not as welcoming. The change has also caused a degree of unease in Abe's coalition, particularly his junior coalition partner, the Buddhist-backed New Komeito party.

"I can't agree to this easily," LDP lawmaker Seiichiro Murakami told reporters last week. The interpretation of the constitution should not be changed by cabinet resolution, he said. "It's an extremely important problem that involves a major change of direction for Japan after 70 years."

The cabinet resolution allows for use of a minimum of force in cases where a country with close ties to Japan comes under attack. The use of force would only be allowed if the attack threatens Japan's existence and there is no other means of protecting the Japanese people.

"China's actions have been certainly aggressive and assertive," said Jeff Kingston, Director of Asian Studies at Temple University's Tokyo campus. "It's stoked an arc of anxiety stretching from New Delhi to Tokyo. It is very interesting that despite all that the Japanese people are clinging to their peace constitution and that Abe is seen to be undemocratic."

Japan strengthening its defense posture could lead China to become even more aggressive, said Rana Mitter, Professor of modern Chinese history and politics at the Institute for Chinese Studies at Oxford University.

"China will use this move by Japan to make the case that it needs to look after its own interests in Asia and may use Japan's move to try and justify further military spending," he said.

While the protests are smaller than those against nuclear power in the summer of 2012, or a law toughening penalties for leaking state secrets passed in December, surveys show a majority of people in Japan oppose collective self-defense.

A poll by the Mainichi newspaper on June 27-28 found 58 percent of respondents against it, with more than 70 percent saying they feared the policy change would lead to Japan being entangled in another country's war. Support for Abe fell to 45 percent, the lowest figure in the Mainichi polls since he took office in December 2012. The paper polled 1,008 people by phone and did not give a margin of error.

A Nikkei newspaper poll from June 27 to 29 found that 50 percent of respondents opposed collective self-defense.

"It's because we have this constitution that Japan is trusted around the world," Kazuko Kajino, 65, from Tokyo said June 30 at the protest outside Abe's residence. "Everyone knows that whatever happens we won't invade."

Reinterpreting the constitution may open the gates to further changes to the defense forces down the track, according to Kingston from Temple University.

"Everybody understands that this is a blank check," he said. "Once you've agreed to collective self-defense, there is no turning back." (Bloomberg)

http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20140702000861

Commentary: Japan's Abe manipulating a dangerous coup against pacifist Constitution

By Liu Tian, Feng Wuyong (Xinhua) 18:57, June 30, 2014

TOKYO, June 30 -- Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is manipulating a dangerous coup to overturn the country's post- war pacifism and democratic ideals, as he hones in on releasing the shackles of the nation's legally tethered military and war will from its war-renouncing Constitution.
It is no coincidence that the prime minister is seeking the green light to Japan's military being able to exercise the right to collective self-defense on July 1, the 60th anniversary of the establishment of Japan's Self-Defense Forces (SDF), as the move will drastically change Japan's defense stance since the end of World War II and possibly see the country dragged back into bloody conflict in the future.
Apparently, fighting for countries that have close ties with Japan can not be accounted for under the auspices of self-defense, but for the SDF to be potentially deployed to every corner of the globe to engage in battle, surely means that Abe has "upgraded" Japan's SDF to a national military.
Japan's new collective self-defence stance, flies in the face of Japan's internationally-recognized anti-war constitution, whose Article 9 reads "the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes. To accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized."
Just because of the very existence of Article 9, previous Japanese governments' interpretation strictly defined items of " self-defense" and "use of force," as well as "self-defense forces" and "national defense army" and therefore, thanks to the supreme law, Japan finally eked out legislative space for the legal existence of hundreds of thousands of SDF members.
Abe, however, has shunned the normal procedures to amend the Constitution and bungled a broad "conditions to the use of force" instead of the original "conditions to launch self-defense", brutally violating the spirit of Japan's current Constitution.
Abe's coup against the Constitution also exposed his scorn over public opinion as many surveys conducted by Japanese mainstream media have shown nearly 70 percent of Japanese oppose Abe's plot to exercising collective defense through reinterpreting the constitution and over 60 percent said they were against allowing the SDF to engage war outside Japan through any means.
It is ironic that "rule of law" and "democracy" are seemingly pet phrases of the prime minister used for international discourse, but what the leader is doing is trampling on the country's supreme law and abandoning Japan's basic democratic fundamentals.
Abe's trusted follower, deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso talked earlier about changing the constitution, suggesting Japan should do it quietly. "Just as in one day the Weimar constitution changed to the Nazi constitution, without anyone realizing it, why don't we learn from that sort of tactic?" Aso suggested.
Now, Abe is very close to his goal through such "Nazi tactics" and his move has already hollowed the Constitution's Article 9 and fundamentally overthrown the country's peaceful path in the postwar era.
Abe's anti-constitution plot poses a great challenge to the seven-decade-old postwar international order, which was based on a series of international treaties and declarations, including the Cairo Declaration and the Potsdam Proclamation.
Abe's visit to the war-linked Yasukuni Shrine, which honors 14 convicted Japanese war criminals during WWII, also challenges the judgments of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, and his claim to islands disputed with neighbors, challenges the essence of both the Cairo Declaration and the Potsdam Proclamation.
Now, Abe's final volume of his "postwar remilitarization trilogy" will be completed -- tearing up Japan's peaceful commitment to the international community -- if the resolution on collective defense is approved Tuesday.
For his own "ambitions" stemming from a singular history of wishing to leave such a militarized legacy, Abe has hijacked the nation on his way to combat and has cast a gloomy shadow over security in the Asia-Pacific region and the entire world.
A Japanese lawmaker bemoaned that the "dusk of the Weimar Constitution" will be repeated in Japan. One can only hope that the dusk of Japan's pacifist constitution will not lead to the entire collapse of the postwar international system.

http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/n/2014...48785.html

[Peter Lemkin]

Much of the World is continually militarizing.....it can't end well! The next World War will be the last...of that I am sure!

[David Guyatt]

I think they're only going public now with what has been going on covertly for many years. As long ago as 2009 Japan announced they were laying down the hulls of a new class of aircraft carrier, called the Izumo class. Two were ordered. In order to handle negative public reaction they have been termed "Helicopter destroyers" but with alight deck of 820 fret in length and other classical aircraft carrier characterises, these could be easily modified to carry fixed wing aircraft at a moments notice.

They also have two Hyuga class helicopter destroyers currently in service and with the first Izumo class launched last year, they now have three with one more due to enter service soon.

Taken together this gives a much clearer perspective of their longer term aggressive intentions.

Japan's Unveils "Aircraft Carrier in Disguise"

China is unnerved by Japan's 22DDH-class (Izumo) helicopter destroyer, which is a destroyer in name only.


By Zachary Keck
August 07, 2013

Japan officially unveiled its long-awaited Izumo-class helicopter destroyer (22DDH-class destroyer) on Wednesday, the Associated Press reports.
At 250 meters (820 feet) long, and reportedly displacing 24,000 tons, the ship can carry 14 helicopters. It is the largest warship Japan has fielded since WWII, and about 50 percent bigger (in terms of displacement) than Japan's current largest ship, the Hyuga-class helicopter destroyer.
The unveiling of the vessel, which will be the third helicopter carrier in the Japan Maritime Self Defense Forces' (JMSDF) fleet, coincides with the 68[SUP]th[/SUP] anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. The 22DDH-Class Destroyer was first order in 2009 and is expected to be commissioned into the fleet in 2015.
Tokyo has said the Izumo-class destroyer will be used for anti-submarine warfare, border-area surveillance missions and to transport personnel to the sites of natural disasters.
However, the vessel has clearly unnerved China, where it has received extensive coverage in the state media.
Commenting on the 22DDH on Wednesday, China's Defense Ministry said, "We are concerned over Japan's constant expansion of its military equipment. Japan's Asian neighbors and the international community need to be highly vigilant about this trend. Japan should learn from history, adhere to its policy of self-defense and abide by its promise to take the road of peaceful development."
Li Daguang, a professor at the PLA's National Defense University, similarly called the vessel an "aircraft carrier in disguise."
Japan's pacifist constitution would seemingly prohibit it from operating aircraft carriers. However, Li is not alone in having these suspicions. Commentators have been warning for years that this is a destroyer in name only and is built so that it is could theoretically later be equipped with combat aircraft such as the F-35B, the short takeoff and vertical landing variant of the Joint Strike Fighter.
Sources in Japan have countered this speculation by suggesting that the reason for the increase in the 22DDH's size over the Hyuga-class is that Japan intends to use the V22 Osprey as the main aircraft it flies off the vessel. There is no official confirmation on this; however, it is notable that Japan is now looking at buying the V22 Osprey.
In reality, it seems likely that how Japan uses the 22DDH will depend on how the regional security situation develops. By building a pseudo-carrier, and maintaining a fleet of combat aircraft, Tokyo will preserve the option of deploying an aircraft carrier after a certain amount of training, which could potentially be reduced by practicing take-off and landing exercises from U.S. carriers.
In this sense, the 22DDH might not be so different from Japan's breakout nuclear capacity.