Because Japan is diplomatically opposed to China, Japan plays a key role in the geopolitics of East Asia. In a past column, I addressed the current issues regarding Japan’s role as a U.S. partner in East Asia, arguing that, without bold decisions for rearmament, Japan has very limited options for its foreign policy against China.
Developments over the past few months show that Japan is on a path to renewed militarization. But changing Japan’s laws to enable said militarization presents the risk of creating deep internal turmoil in Japan due to the lasting cultural conflict between pacifism and militarism.
The military is a very serious and controversial subject in Japanese politics. Ever since the end of WWII, Japan has formally renounced its right to wage war through Article 9, a constitutional clause preventing Japan from fielding an army, navy or air force. Japan’s only means for self-defense since then has been the aptly named Japan Self-Defense Forces, Japan’s informal military tasked with safeguarding Japan’s own territories.
Along with formally renouncing war as a right in its constitution, Japan also underwent a cultural shift during the Cold War to denounce and abandon its warrior culture and militarism. During Japan’s occupation by Allied powers, the United States’s main goal was to prevent Japan from returning to imperialism by replacing nationalist and militarist elements in its culture through reeducation centered around pacifism.
For nearly 80 years since then, pacifism has been the root of Japanese culture and foreign policy, though this may soon change. Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is currently initiating a process to reform the constitution, likely aimed at removing Article 9.
Takaichi is known for her confrontational approach to Sino-Japanese relations and her open support for Taiwan’s independence, a sharp departure from the previous status quo of neutral, if cold, diplomacy.
But Takaichi has refrained from making a clear statement about the purpose of constitutional reform, so removing Article 9 is a move only assumed by analysts so far. Nevertheless, abandoning legal pacifism and reembracing militarism is widely expected from Takaichi’s comparatively hawkish stance on politics.
Two important questions stand between Takaichi and rearming Japan: “how?” and “why?”
Starting with the former, if Japan were to abandon pacifism, expanding its military capabilities would require significant investment in the Japanese military industry. Such investments would also take money away from civilian services and welfare programs, a move that is all the more risky given Japan’s aging population, which depends on said programs.
More important is the issue of “why?,” which is also the reason to expect serious tension in Japanese politics under Takaichi. The remilitarization of Japan signals a vision for greater involvement in regional, potentially even global geopolitics through overseas troop deployments. Moreover, as the United States faces challenges in maintaining its global alliances, Takaichi’s ambition to expand Japan’s forces reflects a willingness to stand against China independently of the United States’ interests. This is especially evident in Takaichi’s support for the formal recognition of Taiwan as an independent state, risking a direct conflict with China.
Such strategies, coupled with a bolder revival in the political consciousness of Japan’s imperial past, will, at any rate, trigger a social divide between the youth who oppose militarization and the state-sponsored jingoism it enables and an increasingly conservative government that is tolerant of, if not enthusiastic about, Japan’s past warrior culture. Austerity measures, including cuts to welfare, the repurposing of civilian industry and an even greater emphasis on nationalism in education, are expected from the government.
In contrast, if this change occurs and young protestors can organize themselves into action groups, frequent strikes, clashes with police and mass riots can be expected in Japan’s cities from strong supporters of maintaining pacifism.
At any rate, the potential for rearmament through constitutional revision now puts Japan on a path to a fragile political position. Setting aside the large investments required to stand up to China militarily, the strong support among the Japanese for pacifism delegitimizes the government’s top-down rearmament.
Consequently, either the revision of Article 9 must be presented to the public as a referendum issue and decided democratically or the government must now be prepared to face a period of serious political discontent and domestic instability.
Deniz Gulay is a junior double-majoring in history and Russian.
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