hankyoreh

Article 9 of Japan’s constitution bans any act of war by the state. It was enacted in 1947 under the leadership of occupation commander Gen. Douglas MacArthur after Japan’s World War II surrender in 1945. It has been the long cherished dream of Japanese right-wingers to undo this clause and create a state that can engage in aggressive military acts.
Peaceful voices within Japan and the influence of neighboring countries South Korea and China have kept this belligerent instinct mostly in check, but it has been acted out in cases like the beautification and praise of Japan’s past aggression and prayers at the Yasukuni Shrine, where the memorial tablets of war criminals are enshrined.
With the political and social situation in Japan changing, activity to break the seal of the peace constitution are quickly moving towards realization. Firstly, the reformist opposition party Japan Socialist Party (now the Social Democratic Party), which had defended the peace constitution, collapsed with the fall of the “1955 System” in 1993, greatly weakening the political force to restrain Japan‘s shift to the right. Taking power in 2009, the Democratic Party of Japan, far from restraining the rightward drift, is actually leading it after Yoshihiko Noda became prime minister. Noda is a graduate of the Matsushita Institute of Government and Management, a training institute for right-wing politicians.
Looking at recent political trends, a committee directly under the Prime Minister ordered that the constitution be interpreted in a way that allows for the exercise of collective self-defense. It was also the Democratic Party that relaxed the “Three Principles of Arms Exports” and amended Japan’s basic law on nuclear power in a way that opens the door to arming the country with nuclear weapons. The Liberal Democratic Party, the largest opposition party, has for the next general election pledged to enact a basic national security law that would allow Japan to exercise the right to collective self-defense even without amending the constitution, while the Osaka Restoration Association of Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto, who has risen quickly against a backdrop of disgust with establishment politics, is calling for a referendum of amending Article 9. It brings to mind even the Imperial Rule Assistance Association, the system that mobilized the Japanese public during the Pacific War.
Meanwhile, pro-peace, anti-war and anti-nuclear forces in Japan are gradually losing their presence and restraining force. In fact, with frustration and a sense of victimization deepening in Japanese society due to two decades of a weak economy and last year’s massive earthquake and tsunami in eastern Japan, an aggressive rightward drift is spreading. Adding to this are demands from the United States, which wants to contain the rise of China.
Korea, which experienced the misery of Japanese colonial rule, has an obligation to strongly restrain and hold back moves to rearm by Japan, which has not clearly cut itself off from the aggressive acts of its past. Japan continues to deny responsibility for the military crimes committed throughout its colonial era, including the enslavement of comfort women. We must warn not only Japan, but the international community that moves to amend the peace constitution would open a Pandora’s box that could shatter peace in Northeast Asia.
　
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