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TOKYO -- Resurgent nationalism by Japan's youth, a feeling that
military dependence
on the United States cannot last forever and a sense that Tokyo should be
more ready to participate unambiguously in peacekeeping are reasons for a
renewed interest in constitutional change, analysts say.
A three-hour initial convening of the Lower House Constitutional
Research Panel last week served as a prelude to the May 3 Constitution Day
holiday.
Spirited debate, something that has been missing from commemoration of
the holiday in the 47 years since the postwar constitution was
promulgated, flared particularly over controversial Article 9.
Conservative lawmaker Hiroshi Mitsuzuka of the ruling Liberal
Democratic Party was adamant that the nation's right to self-defense should
be clearly spelled out in Article 9 of the constitution, which
currently prevents Japan from having military forces.
Hypocrisy is also an issue since, in fact, Japan has the world's
fifth-largest military budget at US$47.8 billion and hosts more than
30,000 American troops.
A survey by the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper has shown that 70 percent
of 1,181 who participated in the poll nationwide are interested in the
activities of the panel, but most (80 percent) said the panel should take
its time and not rush to a conclusion. About half of the respondents said
the constitution should eventually be revised.
Some opinions, such as that of Komazawa University Professor Osamu
Nishi, claimed that the constitution was forced on Japan during the
occupation by U.S. Commander Gen. Douglas MacArthur
and should be revised at all costs.
The constitution was, in fact, written by Americans. Some Japanese
revisions were included before the document was approved by MacArthur.
Offstage, Tokyo's loose cannon Gov. Shintaro Ishihara, has been
proposing that Japan simply annul the present constitution on grounds that
the nation was under occupation when it was introduced. Germany arranged
for its wartime constitution to expire when the occupation was over, but
Japan took no such step.
Taro Nakayama, former foreign minister who heads the constitution
panel in the lower house says such a view is irrational, maintaining that
the procedures stipulated in the constitution should be followed when it
is revised.
In 1957, the government set up a similar cabinet-level panel to
consider revising the constitution. Its report in 1964, which detailed pros
and cons, failed to initiate formal Diet debate in the face of
left-leaning parties' insistence on keeping the document sacrosanct.
Yasuhiro Nakasone, a former prime minister and LDP leader, urged the
panel to complete preliminary studies on the current constitution within
two years and then begin discussing in detail which articles should be
amended.
Rikukai Sasaki of the Japan Communist Party said his party will firmly
oppose any change. "Japan should sever its security arrangement with the
United States and seek ways to coexist with its Asian neighbors," he said.
Any revision of the constitution requires approval from more than
two-thirds of both Diet chambers as well as from more than half of
Japanese voters in a national plebiscite.
There have been indications of growing nationalism among Japan's youth,
who are beginning to recoil from the sense of guilt that permeates much of
society.
As an example, Yoshinori Kobayashi's "A Theory of War," a comic book
that portrays Japan's role in the Pacific War in a positive rather than
negative light, was a best-seller in 1998.
In English, an exhaustive study of the American-written constitution and
the controversy that still swirls around it is found in "Embracing
Defeat," by John W. Dower, (W.W. Norton and Company /The New Press, New
York, 1999). Dower's impressive work won the Pulitzer Prize for history
this year.
Edward Neilan (eneilan@crisscross.com) is a veteran journalist, based in Tokyo, who covers East Asia and writes weekly for World Tribune.com.