{"id":227143,"date":"2023-01-16T12:00:57","date_gmt":"2023-01-16T12:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=227143"},"modified":"2023-01-10T05:05:38","modified_gmt":"2023-01-10T05:05:38","slug":"biden-tramples-on-japans-post-wwii-pacifist-constitution-by-pushing-countrys-rearmament","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2023\/01\/biden-tramples-on-japans-post-wwii-pacifist-constitution-by-pushing-countrys-rearmament\/","title":{"rendered":"Biden Tramples on Japan\u2019s Post-WWII Pacifist Constitution by Pushing Country\u2019s Rearmament"},"content":{"rendered":"

Main target is China in dangerously provocative policy that faces no visible domestic opposition in the U.S.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>

[Source: globalresearch.ca]<\/p><\/div>\n

9 Jan 2023 <\/em>– On December 16, Japan\u2019s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced a new defense strategy that doubled Japan\u2019s military spending by 2027. Japan further agreed to acquire offensive weapons and reshape its military command structure for its expanded armed forces.<\/p>\n

On December 23, the draft budget was approved by Kishida\u2019s cabinet.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Fumio Kishida [Source: overtdefense.com<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Japan\u2019s dangerous military expansion should set off international alarm bells. This major escalation is taking place based on intense U.S. imperialist pressure. It is the next step in the \u201cPivot to Asia,\u201d aimed at threatening and surrounding China and attempting to reassert U.S. dominance in the Asia Pacific.<\/p>\n

\"Map
[Source: indrastra.com<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The movements opposing endless U.S. wars must begin to prepare material and draw mass attention to this ominous threat.<\/p>\n

The plan to double military spending will add $315 billion to Japan\u2019s defense budget over the next five years and make Japan\u2019s military the world\u2019s third largest, after the U.S. and China. Defense spending will escalate to 2% of gross domestic product, equal to the goal the U.S. sets for its NATO allies. Japan\u2019s economy is the world\u2019s third largest.<\/p>\n

The Japanese government plans to buy up to 500 Lockheed Martin Tomahawk missiles and Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles (JASSM), procure more naval vessels and fighter aircraft, increase cyber-warfare capabilities, manufacture its own hypersonic guided missiles and produce its own advanced fighter jets, along with other weapons. The plan shifts from relying solely on missile defense to also embracing \u201ccounter strike\u201d capabilities.<\/p>\n

\"Timeline
This Japanese-language graphic shows the country\u2019s two planned hypersonic weapons: (1) the Hypersonic Cruise Missile and (2) the Hyper Velocity Gliding Projectile. [Source: defensenews.com<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In a stinging editorial<\/a>, the left-leaning Asahi<\/em>, one of Japan\u2019s largest dailies called Kishida\u2019s plan a \u201cradical and dangerous departure from the past,\u201d accusing the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) of \u201crushing headlong into beefing up the nation\u2019s military muscle without developing plans or taking actions to improve the environment for building peace.\u201d The editorial also took issue with the new counter strike capabilities, saying they would \u201ceviscerate the nation\u2019s long established principle of sticking to a strictly defensive security policy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"
Choe Sun-hui [Source: wikipedia.org<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

The Democratic People\u2019s Republic of Korea (DPRK)\u2019s foreign ministry, now led by veteran negotiator Choe Sun-hui meanwhile declared that Japan had effectively formalised \u201cthe capability for preemptive attack,\u201d while criticizing the U.S government for \u201cconniving and instigating Japan\u2019s rearmament and reinvasion scheme.\u201d<\/p>\n

Article 9 \u2013 A Class Struggle Against Military Rearmament<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Three key security documents\u2014the National Security Strategy (NSS), as well as the National Defense Strategy (NDS) and the Defense Buildup Program (DBP)\u2014shed some of the post-war constraints on the Japanese military.<\/p>\n

Although the U.S. occupation force, after defeating Japan\u2019s military in World War II, imposed a \u201cpacifist\u201d constitution on Japan, for decades U.S. strategists have pressured Japan\u2019s government to aggressively rearm, to buy U.S.-made weapons, and to act as a junior partner to U.S. efforts to dominate the Asia-Pacific region.<\/p>\n

Article 9 of the imposed Japanese constitution prohibits Japan from maintaining an army, navy and air force. To get around this, the \u201cJapanese Self-Defense Forces\u201d (JSDF) have since 1952 been treated as a legal extension of the police and prison system. The U.S. occupiers considered the JSDF an essential repressive tool defending capitalist property relations against the workers\u2019 movement.<\/p>\n

The decision for aggressive military expansion is in open violation of Japan\u2019s supposedly pacifist constitution.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Japanese Self-Defense Force, 6th<\/sup> Division. [Source: asian-defence-news.blogspot.com<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The effort to \u201creinterpret\u201d Article 9 has been a continuing political struggle inside Japan. Mass rallies of hundreds of thousands have mobilized many times in defense of Article 9, which offers a clear prohibition of Japan\u2019s maintaining a military force. The widespread opposition to the Japanese military and to constitutional change comes from working people, mobilized by the unions and the communist and socialist movements.<\/p>\n

This movement pointed out to everyone how the wartime militarist regime of the 1930s and 1940s carried out brutal repression and led Japan into World War II. The people know from bitter experience that these ultra-rightist forces, whose roots are in historic Japanese colonialism, are the real threat to their rights and the social gains they have made.<\/p>\n

The present doubling of the defense budget will be funded by raising taxes. A huge military budget will inevitably mean severe cuts to the country\u2019s limited social spending.<\/p>\n

The LDP, which has held power almost continually since the 1950s, is right-wing, pro-military and allied to U.S. imperialism, especially against China and the DPRK. They have been pushing for an end to the constitutional and legal restrictions on the country\u2019s military.<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"
[Source: jimin.jp<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

The assassination of retired President Shinzo Abe on July 8, 2022, just two days before Japan\u2019s election, brought additional votes to the LDP. It was able to win the two-thirds super-majority in the National Diet (Japanese Parliament) needed to move forward aggressively with its military plans.<\/p>\n

Targeting China<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Japan\u2019s military expansion fits in with Washington\u2019s aggression aimed at China, the DPRK and Russia. U.S. strategists\u2019 goal is to use the U.S. alliance with Japan, South Korea and Australia, just as it uses the U.S.-led NATO alliance in Europe.<\/p>\n

The doubling of NATO\u2019s membership and NATO\u2019s targeting of Russia have led to war in Ukraine, when the U.S. government imposed thousands of new sanctions against Russia, and the U.S. has ruptured the European Union\u2019s mutually beneficial trade with Russia.<\/p>\n

China is Japan\u2019s largest trading partner in both imports and exports. Previous National Strategy Documents said Japan was seeking a \u201cmutually beneficial strategic partnership\u201d with China. Suddenly Japanese strategists started labeling China \u201cthe greatest strategic challenge in ensuring the peace and security of Japan.\u201d (U.S. Institute of Peace, December 19)<\/p>\n

Japan had expanded trade with Russia in gas, oil, autos and machinery. Previously Japan\u2019s December 17, 2013, National Security Strategy document called for \u201cenhanced ties and cooperation with Russia.\u201d Now Japan considers Russia a \u201cstrong security concern.\u201d (USIP, December 19)<\/p>\n

A U.S.-Japan alliance is now defined as a \u201ccornerstone\u201d of Japan\u2019s security policy. (Japan Times<\/em>, December 17)<\/p>\n

\"\"
[Source: timetoast.com<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

U.S. Praise of Japan\u2019s Rising Militarism<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The U.S. media praised Japan\u2019s new security strategy document as a \u201cbold and historic step.\u201d U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan praised the defense spending hike, which \u201cwill strengthen and modernize the U.S.-Japan alliance.\u201d U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called Japan an \u201cindispensable partner\u201d and cheered that the changed security documents reshape the ability to \u201cprotect the rules-based order in the Indo-Pacific region and around the world.\u201d (quotes,\u00a0whitehouse.gov<\/a>, December 16)<\/p>\n

\"A
[Source: japan-forward.com<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

U.S. corporate power is the immediate beneficiary of this sharp turn in policy, built on military threats and economic sanctions.<\/p>\n

Foreign Affairs<\/em> magazine calls the announcement \u201ca profound transformation,\u201d stating that \u201cthe new national security strategy, however, represents a stunning change\u2026.[T]he government is enacting policies that have been debated for decades but were always blocked. Until now . . . Japan\u2019s new national security strategy should be applauded.\u201d (Foreign Affairs<\/em>, December 23)<\/p>\n

U.S. needs collaborators<\/strong><\/h2>\n

U.S. policy toward the defeated capitalist class in Germany, Italy and Japan was remarkably similar. At the end of World War II, many of the industrial leaders who had backed these fascist regimes were quietly protected and rehabilitated in Japan, Germany and Italy, along with the fascist collaborators who fled from workers\u2019 control in Eastern Europe.<\/p>\n

The U.S. and later NATO used the rehabilitated fascists against a rising workers movement in Western Europe and against socialist construction in Eastern Europe. U.S. corporations, which had aggressively moved into the defeated Axis countries, needed insurance that their investments would be protected from the strike waves.<\/p>\n

By 1950 the U.S. was at war on the Korean peninsula and, while using U.S. troops in Korea, needed a military force for \u201cpeacekeeping and self-defense\u201d of capitalist property relations in Japan. Germany, Italy and Japan began to rearm during that period.<\/p>\n

The impact on Okinawa<\/strong><\/h2>\n

A chain of 150 islands called the Ryukyu Archipelago, of which the largest island is Okinawa, 400 miles from the Japanese mainland, is in reality a colony of Japan. Its population of 1.74 million people suffers from Tokyo\u2019s rule and from the occupation by U.S. military bases. Okinawa is geographically closer to Taiwan than it is to the main islands of Japan.<\/p>\n

Upgrading and strengthening Japanese ground units on Okinawa is part of the new National Security Strategy (NSS). Other islands, which are part of the chain southwest of Japan, will be further militarized.<\/p>\n

Upgrading of Japan\u2019s 15th Brigade on these islands for future electronic warfare, cyber warfare and joint operations of the ground, maritime and air forces are clearly a sign of plans to intervene in the Taiwan Strait.<\/p>\n

In recent years, Japan has deployed anti-ship and air-defense missiles on its southwest islands of Amami Oshima, Okinawa Main Island, Miyako Island and a missile base on Ishigaki Island, the island closest to Taiwan.<\/p>\n

\"Map
[Source: thailanddaily.com<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

More than 50,000 U.S. troops remain as an occupying force in Japan, at present the largest U.S. occupation force in any country. More than half of U.S. troops are based on Okinawa.<\/p>\n

\"A
U.S. troops on Okinawa. [Source: army.mil<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Okinawa residents, the Indigenous Ryukyu people, have spent decades protesting the constant presence of the U.S. military in their daily lives. There are now 31 U.S. military installations on the island prefecture of Okinawa, which accounts for 74% of the area of all U.S. military bases in Japan, although Okinawa only constitutes 0.6% of Japanese territory.<\/p>\n

\"A
[Source: news.yahoo.com<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The U.S. maintains 73 military bases and 28,500 troops in South Korea. Both South Korea and Japan are forced to pay for \u201chosting\u201d these troops of occupation.<\/p>\n

\u201cUsing North Korea threat as cover\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\"A
[Source: defensenews.com<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Japan has previously justified its remilitarization by claiming North Korea is a threat.\u00a0However, retired Maritime Self-Defense Force (MSDF) Admiral Tomohisa Takei told the media that China has been the main target for which Japan has been preparing, \u201cby using North Korea\u2019s threat as cover.\u201d (AP, December 17)<\/p>\n

Both Japan and South Korea engage on a regular basis in coordinated military drills under U.S. command threatening Korea DPRK. Massive demonstrations in South Korea and missiles fired from targeted North Korea respond to these military provocations.<\/p>\n

\"A
[Source: stream.org<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This cynical admission of the planning and preparation for war, while claiming self-defense, is similar to former German Chancellor Angela Merkel\u2019s December 8 admission<\/a> that the signing of the 2014 Minsk Agreement was not a peace treaty with Russia. Merkel confirmed that NATO wanted war from the start but needed time to prepare Ukraine militarily. (Interview in Die Zeit<\/em>, December 7)<\/p>\n

Having goaded Russia into an invasion of Ukraine in a bid to weaken and fragment Russia, the U.S. is next seeking to turn Taiwan into a military quagmire for China. The Biden administration is facilitating Taiwan\u2019s purchase of advanced weaponry from the U.S. and greater diplomatic ties with the island.<\/p>\n

Part of an effort to focus political attention through fact sheets, talking points, videos and webinars on the growing threat of U.S. pressure for Japan\u2019s rearming is the short video, posted on the International Action Center website titled: \u201cJapan\u2019s constitutional amendment: a dangerous signal.\u201d (tinyurl.com\/mwjdt8rm<\/a>)\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

_____________________________________________<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
\n
\n

\"\"<\/a>Sara Flounders <\/span>is a North American political writer active in progressive and anti-war organizing since the 1960s. She is a Contributing Editor of the Marxist <\/em>Workers World newspaper<\/a>\u00a0as well as a principal leader of the International Action Center<\/a>. Sara also works actively with the SanctionsKill Campaign<\/a> and United National Antiwar Coalition<\/a>. She can be reached at flounders.sara16@gmail.com<\/span><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original – covertactionmagazine.com<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

9 Jan 2023 – Main target is China in dangerously provocative policy that faces no visible domestic opposition in the U.S.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":227145,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[2197,179,2462,1323,70,1594],"class_list":["post-227143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asia-pacific","tag-biden","tag-japan","tag-military-industrial-media-complex","tag-nuclear-club","tag-usa","tag-war-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=227143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227143\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/227145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=227143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=227143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=227143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}