[Analysis] What’s Abe really doing with revised security legislation?

Posted on : 2015-09-19 14:34 KST Modified on : 2019-10-19 20:29 KST
Changes to legal framework mark a coincidence of Japanese and US interests seeking a larger Japanese military presence in East Asia
 as the opposition party sought to delay bills to allow the country’s military to wage war. (AFP/Yonhap News)
as the opposition party sought to delay bills to allow the country’s military to wage war. (AFP/Yonhap News)

The new and revised national security legislation passed at a general session of the Japanese House of Councillors on Sept. 19 - a move that puts the political future of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on the line - consists of ten amendments to the Self-Defense Forces Act and other laws and a new “International Peace Support Law.”

 To justify the changes, Abe has invoked the changing security environment in the Asia-Pacific Region.

 “We need to be able to protect citizen lives whatever the situation, and for that reason we need to have discussions on what is possible under the current Constitution,” Abe declared after a July 2014 Cabinet decision on Japan’s collective self-defence authority.

 An additional argument is that Japan would be able to contribute to international peace through “active pacifism.” It is this argument that reveals Abe’s ambitions for stronger capabilities and roles for Japan’s military.

 The passage of the latest legislation against opposition would enable Japan to exercise military force when the country is deemed to be under threat by an attack against a closely tied foreign country - even if Japan itself is not under attack. This is the concept of “collective self-defense.”

 But the current Japanese Constitution bars the “threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes,” preventing the country from sending large fighting units from its Japan Self-Defense Forces (JSDF) overseas as South Korea did with its fighting in the Vietnam War during the 1960s and 1970s. The only examples given by Abe to date of specific situations when the JSDF could exercise collective self-defense rights have been “mine clearing in the Strait of Hormuz” and “defending a US warship with Japanese nationals on board.”

 Both examples have since lost their relevance for a Diet of Japan review as a result of international changes, including the conclusion of a nuclear deal between the US and Iran. Kyoji Yanagisawa, a former assistant chief Cabinet secretary who oversaw national security policy under the Junichiro Koizumi administration (2001-2006), and the Democratic Party of Japan, which is the Diet’s chief opposition party, have both claimed that Japan’s security interests would be better served by reconfiguring individual self-defense authority rather than acquiring collective self-defense authority - basically arguing that the latter is unnecessary for security.

 This has led some Japanese military experts to argue that the legislation is essentially concerned not with an actual exercise of collective self-defense authority, but the easing of restrictions on the JSDF’s rear-area support and peacekeeping activities. By this reason, the revised Situations in Areas Surrounding Japanese Law and new International Peace Support Law would allow the JSDF to participate in a wide range of armed conflicts around the world as a way of “providing rear-area support” to the US or multinational forces. With the two laws, the administration has greatly broadened the concept of “non-combat regions” to allow the JSDF operations in “regions where combat is actually taking place,” while allowing previously barred services such as ammunition supplies, takeoff preparations, and fighter fueling.

 Their passage also raises the chances that the JSDF could send to large logistical units to Middle East or other regions at the US’s request - which explains the Japanese public’s concerns about innocent lives being lost if Japan is dragged into a US war.

 The legislation is the result of two sets of interests: Abe’s interest in an alliance where the US and Japan are on equal footing, and Washington’s interest in using the JSDF to lighten its own military burden. For this reason, some analysts see the new laws as the results of those differing interests ultimately coinciding.

 “Japan is back,” Abe previously declared just after his second election in a Feb. 2013 speech at the US Center for Strategic and International Studies, a meeting of so-called “Japan handlers” with major influence on Washington’s Japan policy. The US government, for its part, responded with an open message of support for Japan’s collective self-defense authority at a bilateral Security Consultative Committee (2+2) meeting in Oct. 2013. In late April, Abe delivered a speech before US Congress in which he pledged to pass the bills by the summer of 2015.

 For the Japanese public, the result is a greater risk of dying from their country being drawn into overseas wars with no bearing on their own security. For South Koreans, it means a more uncertain security environment as the East Asian arms race heats up like never before.

 By Gil Yun-hyung, Tokyo correspondent

 Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]

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