Stratfor's Japan (Anime) Watch

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

America (or the cunning of capitalist reason) wants Japan to follow 
in Germany's footsteps.  Leftists in Japan, however, are still far 
more pacifist than their Euro & American counterparts, it seems to 
me.  The struggles of Okinawans (& memories of the Rape of Nanking, 
Unit 731, "Comfort Women," Hiroshima & Nagasaki, etc.), I hope, will 
continue to steel the political backbone of Japanese leftists. 
Yoshie

*****   0135 GMT, 000125 Japan Rising From Its Pacifism
Stratfor Commentary

The Japanese Parliament announced Jan. 21 that it will begin a 
formal, five-year review of its constitution.  The document, penned 
under the auspices of U.S. Gen. Douglas MacArthur after Japan's 
defeat in World War II, renounces the use of force to resolve 
international disputes.  The announcement of the document's review 
came just days after a panel of advisors to Prime Minister Keizo 
Obuchi recommended that the nation should not sit content with "a 
course of unilateral pacifism."...

Beneath the larger strategic level, Japan has had many tactical 
excuses in recent years to reevaluate its current defense policy. 
For example, Japan was unable to join in the U.N. effort in the Gulf 
War, except by contributing money and minesweepers.  In the December 
1996 hostage crisis at the Japanese Embassy in Peru, Tokyo was 
hamstrung and the incident dragged on for more than three weeks.  The 
Japanese resolve was again tested in 1998, when North Korea tested 
ballistic missiles in Japanese waters.  And then last September, the 
clash in East Timor brought Asian nations into action, despite their 
traditional policy of non-interference.  Japan's current defense 
guidelines made it all but impossible for its troops to participate.

The changing political and social climate has not been immediate. 
Many signs have emerged over the past year.  The most notable was the 
revision in the Self-Defense Forces (SDF) guidelines to allow Japan 
to move beyond territorial waters to provide rear-area logistical and 
search and rescue support to the United States.  If George W. Bush is 
elected in the 2000 U.S. presidential elections, that trend could 
accelerate.  In the Jan.-Feb. issue of Foreign Affairs, one of Bush's 
foreign policy advisors recommended that Tokyo increase its role in 
East Asian Security, again in concert with Washington.

Other factors suggest that Japan is gearing up for a more assertive 
regional role.  In December 1999, the military requested budget 
allocation for an in-air refueling aircraft -- an item on its agenda 
since 1996 -- arguing that it would cut noise pollution.  These 
planes would give Japan the capability to attack foreign territory, 
clearly contradicting the country's pacifist stance.  Again, the 
proposal was rejected, but only after a struggle that pitted the 
Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and Liberal Party against certain 
members of the LDP and the New Komeito.  The military will restate 
the request when the fiscal 2001 budget comes up for discussion.

But there is yet another harbinger to Japan's rising militarism: a 
new generation coming into its adulthood.  More than 60 percent of 
the population is now under 50 years old, born after the end of World 
War II.  Nearly 30 percent is under 25 and knows the war only through 
grandparents' memories....

The younger members of the population are also responsible for a 
recent resurgence in nationalism, a trend that is easily evident in 
the nation's media.  Many of the current generation grew up watching 
Anime "Space Cruiser Yamato," a popular Japanese cartoon known in the 
United States as Star Blazers.  In the cartoon, the protagonists 
dredge up the sunken Japanese World War II battleship Yamato and 
refurbish it as a spacecraft to save all Earth.  More recently, in 
the film-length Anime "Silent Service," the crew of a joint 
U.S.-Japanese nuclear submarine declares its sovereignty as an 
independent nation, provoking the two nations to prepare for battle.

The country's ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) -- a strong 
advocate of constitutional review -- seems intent on speeding up the 
transfer of power to the younger [sic] generations. The LDP has 
proposed an age limit of 80 [!] for representing the party in 
parliament and would like to see the new legislation approved before 
the next general election, set for sometime before October 
2000....The proposal will likely meet a great deal of resistance....

Without a doubt, Japan is preparing to move past the onus of World 
War II and resume operations as a "normal" nation, with the will and 
wherewithal to protect its interests -- eventually, without U.S. 
assistance.  The change, especially sweeping symbolic statements like 
constitutional review, will take years. Japan will have to weigh its 
new assertive nature carefully against the suspicion sure to emerge 
from its neighbors.  Nevertheless, its unnatural "unilateral 
pacifism" will some day be a remnant of the past.

<http://www.indg.org/japan.htm>   *****