The White Peril 白禍

The Diet's Committee on the Constitution (or however it's being anglicized) has released the draft of its proposals, which are due in finalized form in April. The summary at the Yomiuri pulls things together pretty well.

The hottest topic at the meeting was whether the amended Constitution should clearly state the right to exercise collective self-defense.

An advocate of the change said, "It would be bad if the government's interpretation of the stipulation could be easily altered after a change in administration. An ambiguous constitution is problematic."

But an opponent said, "It's a matter of course that the nation can exercise the right to collective self-defense. There's no need to put it in the Constitution."

Of course this is the...culmination is probably the wrong word, since this could keep going indefinitely...latest stage in a protracted series of negotiations. The Shin-Komeito is the LDP's partner in its ruling coalition; one of the issues on which their alliance is shaky is the use of the SDF. The Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), the chief opposition party, opposes changing the constitution. I'm not sure whether its was a DPJ member or someone else who made the statement quoted as "It's a matter of course that the nation can exercise the right to collective self-defense," but it's hard to figure what that could mean. If conservative interpretations of the constitution didn't regard Article 9 as prohibiting Japan from entering international conflicts, this debate wouldn't be going in the first place.

Here's what Article 9 says:

1. 日本国民は、正義と秩序を基調とする国際平和を誠実に希求し、国権の発動たる戦争と、武力による威嚇又は武力の行使は、国際紛争を解決する手段としては、永久にこれを放棄する。
2. 前項の目的を達するため、陸海空軍その他の戦力は、これを保持しない。国の交戦権は、これを認めない。

1. Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, 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.


2. In order to accomplish the aim of the preceeding 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.

Added after looking at Reuters: You know what I don't get? Look for the latest Japan-related headlines on Reuters. I can see why Livedoor's attempted takeover of Fuji Television is a big, big story. I haven't written about it because, well, I usually don't report on business stuff; the case does say interesting things about the state of Japanese media, but nothing that's moved me to go off on it. The nice thing about having a vanity site (verging on Apollonia in my case) is that you get to write about whatever you please.

Reuters is not a vanity site (stop sniggering, you boys in the back!), and you'd think that it would see fit to give some attention to a proposed change in the Japanese constitution. I don't think it's especially newsworthy because I live here, you understand. Japan has the first ever constitution to renounce war explicitly. It's America's chief ally in a volatile region. We're not talking about a potentially insignificant shift here.

This was the lead story on yesterday's print edition of the morning Nikkei: "US and Japan agree on strategic goals for joint measures against terrorist threats to their regions." The result of this meeting (in Washington last week) isn't a surprise, or anything. There was, obviously, lots of hot air about peaceful solutions to problems in Korea and Taiwan and getting the DPRK to return to 6-party talks. Not that those things aren't important, but general statements that democratization is a good thing that the world could use more of aren't exactly revelatory. Two items that approached substantiveness:

• acceleration of talks related to the roles of the Japan SDF and US Armed Forces, and a reevaluation of the structuring of US forces deployed in Japan
  
• a strengthening of cooperation on missile defense

Attendees included Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Nobutaka Machimura, and Japanese Defense Agency Chief Yoshinori Ono. Their unsurprising conclusion was that poor sources of information (the Japanese use 不透明性, which literally refers to "opacity" or "lack of transparency") and instability made the DPRK and the Strait of Formosa the places to watch.

If you're in Japan, you might have seen the subtitled broadcasts from North Korean state television sputtering that recent changes in Japan's defense policy are a cover for a plotted full-scale invasion. There are plenty of long-standing animosities to go around in this region, and the DPRK milks every one of them regularly--one of its favorites, of course, being the understandable lingering Korean resentment over the Japanese occupation. Just to make sure the other big East Asian player isn't left out, we have the PRC trying to get the DPRK to return to the 6-party talks it huffily left last week. In the midst of all this, Japan knows it needs its partnership with the US, and as a proud American who loves Japan, I'm glad the ties are only getting stronger.

Yesterday, Koizumi's cabinet finalized its proposal (Japanese, English) to give the Self-Defense Force more leeway in defense. Specifically, if there's a missile headed toward Japan, the proposal would allow the SDF to shoot the damned thing down without getting approval to mobilize from the Prime Minister.

Perhaps since I'm a military strategist the way Madonna is an actress, this sort of news makes me say, "This is a new proposal? What the hell was the idea before?" From the looks of things, the idea before was that a missile attack would come with plenty of warning. The cabinet is now considering that it may not.

There have been cases (as when our forces shot down an Iranian airliner) in which soldiers have misidentified aircraft, but the Prime Minister isn't exactly in a position to help with that. Preventing those mistakes involves the segment of the command chain a lot closer to those who first sounded the alert. Of course, I assume the expense of anti-missile missiles, which the government can hardly afford to sling around like arrows, was also taken into account. Even in these times of tension in the region...well, it's always tense, but a certain birthday boy has made things extra-special tense of late...one feels safe in presuming that the SDF is not going to get too trigger happy.

Added at 22:40: I'm not a military strategist or historian, apparently. The Iranian Airbus thing was bothering me--I associated it with high school, which for me ended the year before the Gulf War, so I did what I should have done initially and looked it up. I've fixed it above, but, you know, for any persnickety people who noticed....