Japan Times（http://www.japantimes.co.jp/）
(1) The Constitution turns 70
3 May 2017
Japan’s Constitution, which took effect 70 years ago, may be facing the most intense pressures ever for amendment as proponents of revising the supreme law, led by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s ruling coalition, now have the two-thirds majority in both chambers of the Diet required to initiate an amendment for approval in a national referendum. However, there does not appear to be any broad public consensus yet on what part of the Constitution should be changed, how and why —; which seems to reflect a lack of pressing practical needs for an amendment.
The prime minister does not hide his own ambitions to get the Constitution amended while he is in office — where he can potentially stay until 2021. During a ceremony late last month to commemorate the Constitution’s 70th anniversary, Abe said a constitution “should speak of the nation’s future and its ideal state” and advocated the need to “paint an ideal picture of the nation for the new times.” The Constitution should not be amended just to fulfill the agendas of politicians or political parties, nor merely because there is the political window of opportunity in the form of the proponents’ grip on a Diet majority. Voters — who hold the ultimate say on a constitutional amendment — should see through the political arguments and decide for themselves what they want the Constitution to be.
In fact, parties that trumpet the need for a constitutional amendment do not have a consensus on the specifics of how the Constitution should be revised. Even Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party, whose draft amendment in 2012 called for sweeping changes including revising the war-renouncing Article 9, is seeking to start the amendment on issues over which it hopes a broad political and public endorsement can be expected — such as giving the government emergency powers in a national crisis and extending the tenures of Lower House members if they expire just as the nation is hit by a major disaster — before working on more divisive matters such as Article 9.
People seem to realize, however, that Article 9 will be the crux of constitutional amendment — whether or not they support a revision. In a Kyodo News poll taken late last month, nearly half of the respondents who said an amendment is necessary cited “Article 9 and the Self-Defense Forces” in a multiple-choice format on what should be the priority issue in revising the Constitution. Roughly half of the pollees who denied the need for an amendment said they support the Constitution as it is because its war-renouncing text has maintained the peace in postwar Japan.
The Kyodo survey paints a mixed picture of public opinion over the Constitution, particularly Article 9. A total of 60 percent of the pollees called an amendment of the Constitution “necessary” or “rather necessary,” as opposed to 37 percent who replied that an amendment is either “not necessary” or “rather not necessary.” The pollees are more split on revising Article 9 — 49 percent in favor and 47 percent not in favor. A majority of those in favor of revising Article 9 cite “changes in the security environment surrounding Japan,” such as North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile development as well as China’s military buildup. On the other hand, three-quarters of all respondents said Japan never engaged in the use of force overseas in its postwar years “because of Article 9,” giving it credit for the nation’s pacifist path since its World War II defeat.
Article 9 says “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,” and goes on to say that “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.” Japan has had the Ground, Maritime and Air Self-Defense Forces since 1954, however, and the government has explained that the war-renouncing Constitution does not deny the nation the right to defend itself against enemy attacks. The Abe administration meanwhile altered the government’s long-standing interpretation of Article 9 and got its security legislation, which allows the SDF to engage in acts of collective self-defense with the nation’s allies and significantly expands the scope of its overseas missions, enacted in 2015 amid sharply divided public opinion.
The Constitution may not have been amended at all since it entered into force seven decades ago. But the government has indeed interpreted Article 9 to fit its policy needs of the times. If the Abe administration and the LDP have their eyes set on changing Article 9, they should come out and clearly explain why it needs to be changed and how — and ask for people’s judgment.
(2) Abe declares 2020 as goal for new Constitution
3 May 2017
by Tomohiro Osaki and Daisuke Kikuchi(Staff Writers)
In an unprecedented declaration, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Wednesday he hopes to see a revised Constitution take effect in 2020, revealing the clearest goal yet of his long-held ambition to amend the national charter, which has remained untouched since its inception seven decades ago.
Abe’s statement came as the nation marked the 70th anniversary of the enforcement of its pacifist Constitution, which was drafted by the Allied forces after Japan’s defeat in World War II.
“2020 is the year when a new Japan will kick off, and I strongly hope the year will see the new Constitution come into force,” he said in a video message shown at an event in Tokyo’s Nagatacho, the political heart of the country.
Abe’s mention of the timeline suggests he believes he will be re-elected in his party presidential election slated for next year and remain in power through 2021.
Abe also proposed that the revised Constitution clearly mention the presence of the Self-Defense Forces, saying that even after 70 years, the supreme code still makes no acknowledgement of the SDF, despite the high degree of public trust it enjoys today.
“We need to make sure, at least within our generation, that the argument that ‘the SDF may be unconstitutional’ will no longer be made,” he said.
The anniversary coincided with a growing sense of urgency stemming from a recent string of missile launches by North Korea, giving renewed momentum to backers of a constitutional amendment, including Abe. They have long maintained that the current Constitution leaves the SDF undefined, therefore minimizing the nation’s military capability.
At the Wednesday event, Abe said today’s Japan faces a “deteriorating security situation.”
On Saturday, Pyongyang went ahead with yet another, although failed, test-firing of a ballistic missile in its latest defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions.
The anniversary also comes amid an increase in aggressive Chinese maritime activity in the South and East China seas and calls by U.S. President Donald Trump for Tokyo to play a bigger role in regional security even though he has pledged to back Japan “100 percent.”
In changing the charter, however, the war-renouncing Article 9 should be upheld, Abe stressed. A mention of the SDF would not interfere with that pivotal clause, he said.
In the video message, Abe also signaled his willingness to have the Constitution newly stipulate that children be granted free access to higher education, stressing the need for eradicating child poverty.
Abe’s comments came after he had promised at a Tokyo event on Monday to take a “historic” step toward the goal of revising the supreme law this year.
Thanks to a resounding victory in last July’s Upper House election, Abe’s ruling coalition and other pro-revision forces now control a two-thirds majority in both chambers of the Diet, which would allow him to call a national referendum on revising the Constitution for the first time ever.
In April 2012, Abe’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party unveiled its own draft constitution, only to draw fierce criticism by some that it was too conservative and militaristic.
At the Monday event, Abe reiterated the LDP’s stance that it will refrain from submitting the draft to a Diet panel tasked with studying revisions to the Constitution. The LDP’s leadership fears that doing so will antagonize opposition parties to such an extent that discussions on the revisions would stall.
In Tokyo and elsewhere across the country on Wednesday, opponents of Abe’s ambition to revise the charter held protest rallies.
In Tokyo’s Ariake district, the organizers of three civil groups estimated 55,000 people turned out for their rally. Invited to the protest were leaders of opposition parties including the Democratic Party, the Japanese Communist Party and the Social Democratic Party.
Kazuo Shii, chairman of the JCP, criticized Abe’s decision to use the SDF as a way to respond to threats from North Korea, calling it a sign that Japan is being “subordinate” to the U.S. Last month, the Maritime Self-Defense Force began joint drills with the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson amid concerns over the North’s missile tests.
He asserted that diplomacy is “the only solution” to the North Korea crisis and slammed Pyongyang’s development of nuclear missiles as “absolutely unacceptable.”
But he added that “as a country with Article 9 of the Constitution, we should appeal to solve the problem through conversations and negotiations. What we must amend is not the Constitution, but the politics that neglect the Constitution. A prime example of that is the security legislation.”
He was referring to a set of security laws that — based on the Abe Cabinet’s reinterpretation of the Constitution — significantly expanded the scope of overseas operations of the SDF.
Abe’s push for revising the charter has left his political foes like Shii and anti-war activists fighting an uphill battle for its preservation, especially Article 9, which they argue has played a pivotal role in steering the nation away from war for the last 70 years.
They are also concerned that momentum for their antiwar effort has somewhat fizzled out, after it peaked two years ago with the enactment of the security legislation.
During a rally in front of the Diet building on Friday night, Yukino Baba, a 20-year-old student and founding member of protest group Mirai no Tame no Kokyo (Public for the Future), said that the number of like-minded protesters and groups is nowhere near the level seen in 2015. The group was formed in March by former members of SEALDs, short for Students Emergency Action for Liberal Democracy, among others.
“I personally think that the security legislation was easy for the public to understand because of its obvious connection to war. Many people were against war, and that’s why (the protests) were lively,” Baba said. “Compared to that, it’s not as exciting now.”
Baba may be right.
Recent opinion polls conducted by public broadcaster NHK and Kyodo News show that many in the public favor a constitutional revision, with supporters at 43 percent and 60 percent, respectively, versus the 34 percent and 37 percent opposed.
The NHK survey, in particular, showed that 54 percent of respondents who supported the amendment cited the need for “better adjusting to a change in the security environment surrounding Japan.”
Of the 2,643 respondents to the survey, which was conducted on a face-to-face basis in March, 93 percent said they felt threatened by nuclear and missile tests by Pyongyang.
(3) Japanese sharply divided over revising Article 9 amid regional security threats, poll finds
Kyodo
30 April 2017
The Japanese populace remains sharply divided over whether to amend the war-renouncing Article 9 of the Constitution, with supporters of a change slightly outnumbering opponents amid concerns over North Korea and China’s military buildup, a newly released Kyodo News survey showed.
According to the mail-in survey, which was conducted ahead of Wednesday’s 70th anniversary of the postwar Constitution’s enactment, 49 percent of respondents said Article 9 must be revised while 47 percent oppose such a change.
While Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has been eager to rewrite the supreme law, including Article 9, 51 percent were against any constitutional amendments under the Abe administration, compared with 45 percent in favor.
Many people recognized the role Article 9 has played in maintaining the nation’s pacifist stance, with 75 percent of respondents saying the clause has enabled the country to avoid becoming embroiled in conflicts abroad since World War II.
The survey, the results of which were released Saturday, randomly selected 3,000 people nationwide aged 18 and older, with questionnaires being sent to them by mail on March 8. Of those, 2,055 returned their answers by April 14, with valid responses obtained from 1,944 of the respondents.
The current Constitution has not been revised since going into effect in 1947, nor has a bid been made to initiate a formal amendment of the document, partly because of the high hurdles such a proposition would face in the Diet before it could be put to a referendum.
But a first-ever revision of the Constitution, which conservatives often decry as a product of the U.S.-led Occupation authorities that governed the country after the nation’s defeat in World War II, has become a more realistic prospect given the Liberal Democratic Party-led ruling coalition’s strength in the Diet.
Following a string of electoral victories over the past several years, Abe’s LDP and several other parties in favor of constitutional revision now have a two-thirds majority in both houses of the Diet, the threshold needed for making an amendment proposal.
Among those in favor of amending Article 9, the largest group, at 66 percent, cited “the changing security environment surrounding the country, including North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs and China’s military expansion.”The next largest group, at 20 percent, said a change is needed to sort out what they perceive as a contradiction between the provision and the existence of the Self-Defense Forces.
Article 9 stipulates that the Japanese people “forever renounce war” and that “land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained.” The government says the article does not prohibit the country from maintaining its ability to defend itself and thus allows it to possess defensive forces.
Ten percent called for a revision of Article 9 to enable the SDF to engage in international activities more actively, while 3 percent said such a revision is needed to strengthen the security alliance with the United States.
Asked how the article should be changed, 39 percent said the existence of the SDF should be stipulated, followed by 24 percent who proposed adding a clause to restrict the SDF’s international activities and 16 percent who said the SDF should be clearly stated as being a military force.
On the overall need to revise the Constitution in the future, 60 percent said it was “necessary” or “somewhat necessary.” The most popular reason given was that its articles and contents no longer fit the times. The subject deemed requiring discussion by most respondents was “Article 9 and the SDF.”
Supporters for keeping the current Constitution unchanged totaled 37 percent, with 46 percent of them citing its provision prohibiting war and keeping Japan out of conflicts as the reason why. Of those, 26 percent expressed concern that an amendment might lead Japan into a military buildup.
In a similar survey conducted by Kyodo News in last August and September, 49 percent denied the need to change Article 9, compared with 45 percent who were in favor of revision.
The Diet resumed in-depth discussions on constitutional issues last year, but progress has been slow as parties remain far apart in their positions.
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