Japan’s Remilitarization is a Danger to the World

Japanese PM Sanae Takaichi stunned the world when she declared publicly in the Japanese legislature, that a Taiwan contingency could constitute a “survival threatening situation” that would allow Japanese military intervention in “collective defense”.

Words matter.  Especially when they are words with legal force, uttered in an official capacity.

These words are legal terms of art that authorize the aggressive use of the military according to Clause 4 of Japan’s Peace and Security Act of 2015.

Applied to Taiwan, it allows expeditionary military force against China.  Since Japan acknowledges the one-China policy in the Sino-Japanese Joint Statement, this would constitute a violation of international law. In fact, it would be war of aggression.

Alternatively, if we adhere to the legal fiction that the Japanese military is only defensive, Takaichi has stated that its defensive perimeter extends to Taiwan–nonsense, given that Japan surrendered colonial control in 1945.

If we put the shoe on the other foot—if any third country had said that the domestic affairs of another country’s internal provinces were a survival-threatening issue, we would all recognize it as a belligerent, casus bellipretext.

To permit an external state to assert such a statement against another sovereign state without consequence would render nationhood—the backbone of international law—meaningless.

Japan’s Deadly Rap Sheet

Japan’s ruling  Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) was constituted from a coalition of organized crime, military-industrial tycoons, and war criminals, funded by the US CIA.

The LDP was constituted to implant an anti-communist, US quisling government in Japan.  Since its inception it has been staunchly subservient, but also quietly and insistently revisionist.  It has evinced little regret for Japan’s Imperial violence, and ruling factions have held hawkish aspirations to re-establish Japan as a military power. It has held power almost continuously since1955–effectively one party political rule.

Kishi Nobusuke, war criminal, LDP founder, and prime minister (1957-1960), dreamed of remilitarizing Japan.  In 2015, his grandson, Shinzo Abe achieved his dream: he disabled the Japanese Peace constitution, authorizing it to wage war in “collective defense” anytime it encountered a “survival threatening situation”.

Japan used this term in 1894, 1931, 1937, 1941 when it initiated aggressive war.  It is the tried-and-true casus belli excuse. But Takaichi did Abe one better–she let the cat out of the bag: she let the world know that this clause is actually a plan for war of aggression against China

The Apple and the Tree

Prime Minister Takaichi was mentored by former prime minister Shinzo Abe.  She belonged to Abe’s Seiwa faction of the LDP, the ultra-nationalist, far-right faction that envisions a return to authoritarian, monarchical rule with an unleashed military.

The Prime Minister is also a member of Nippon Kaigi, the ultra-right group that dreams of reconstituting the Japanese Empire.

Nippon Kaigi denies the atrocities of Unit 731, the Nanjing massacre, the comfort women, and the slave state of Manchukuo.  It asserts that Japanese imperialism was a benign attempt to create an “Asian co-prosperity sphere”.

Nothing demonstrates the continuity of this revisionist imperial ideology more clearly than Yasukuni shrine, where Takaichi has been a frequent visitor.

Yasukuni shrine was created by the Meiji Emperor as a temporal Valhalla to reward loyal troops who sacrificed themselves for the Emperor.  According to State Shinto mythology, it deifies the kami (spirits) of troops to honor their sacrifices.  As such it rehabilitates and sanctifies 1066 convicted war criminals: at Yasukuni, they are not criminals but Gods to worship.

“Long live the Emperor!  I’ll meet you at Yasukuni shrine” was the shout of Japanese Imperial Troops before entering battle.  Yasukuni is the place where the flame of unrepentant, genocidal militarism is kept alive and consecrated.

Given this, visiting Yasukuni shrine is to intentionally glorify the criminality of the Japanese Empire—an insult to the conscience of the world.  It is a middle finger to humanity and human suffering.

Geopolitical Considerations: 

It is impossible to consider these things in only a domestic light: Japan is a US client state: it surrendered to the US, its constitution was written by the US, its ruling party put into power by the US, and its economy has been manipulated by the US (for example, during the Plaza accords).  It is currently militarily occupied by 53,000 US troops with 70 bases.

As the US prepares and escalates incrementally and unmistakably for war with China, Japan is the critical force multiplier: prime minister Nakasone famously referred to Japan as an “unsinkable aircraft carrier” for the US.

In fact, Japan has always colluded in US wars: as a bombing/logistics platform during the Korean and Vietnam wars, and then as an active, boots-on-the-ground partner in later wars.

War against China will be the final chapter of Japanese remilitarization:  Japan will provide military muscle, provision key military supply chains and do shipbuilding and battle repair.

This is why the Obama-Biden administration pulled South Korea into a trilateral military alliance with Japan and the US (JAKUS), why Japan is a member of the QUAD, why it has a US space force base and a NATO liaison office, and why the US is actively taking control of Japanese military through a joint command structure similar to South Korea’s.

All this has been signaled and telegraphed.  For example, Japan is militarizing the islands closest to Taiwan province with offensive missiles.  This aligns with the CSIS war games study that concluded Japanese participation is essential: Japan is the military linchpin for war.

This also dovetails with Japan’s doubling of its military budget, now amounting to 7.5％ of the government’s budget.  The contradictions of a “pacifist” country with a military budget larger than that of 182 countries–should make everyone pause. If budgets are moral statements, then moral depravity is the only conclusion to draw from such an appropriation: the former continental genocidaire is rearming for war.

Likewise, intimations that it will abandon its non-nuclear position are also worrisome.  This, in combination with high-level US discourse to use tactical nuclear weapons in case of war with China, render these positions politically terrifying.  The US’s recently announced plan to create a new class of battleships with sea-launched nuclear cruise missiles is also a horrifying addition to this escalation.

Subcontracting for US war

These things signal that Takaichi’s statement is not a personal lapsus, but an expression of deep-rooted Japanese intentions that dovetail with the US agenda: using Japan to contain and fight China.

Undersecretary Elbridge Colby’s recent demand in July that Japan clarify its position in the case of the Taiwan contingency underlines this US agenda clearly.

Historically, no other country fits the subcontracting requirements as well as Japan:  Japan has waged aggressive war against China in 1592-1598, 1894-1895, 1931-1937, 1937-1945.  In the most recent war, 35 million Chinese were casualties of Japanese violence.

No opprobrium is too strong for the former Imperial genocidaire of Asia rearming for aggressive war. Even those who seek to harness and use this militarism against China, may ultimately come to regret this, if past history is any indication.  A loose cannon is a danger to all.  A nuclear-armed Japan with a history of unbridled atrocity is a global threat.

China seeks win-win, mutually beneficial relations with everyone, a community with a shared future for mankind.  It has put forward concrete proposals and institutions to realize this difficult, but necessary historic vision. This is the only way for peace and stability, the only way forward for the world.  The entire world needs to come together to condemn—and stop–Japan’s accelerating militarism: for most of Asia, Japan’s remilitarization is the real survival threatening situation.

A version of this article was published in the Beijing Review 

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