How to Normalize Japan's New Security Policy

Abe has long called for formal revision of the constitution to abolish Article 9, but the military allergy — or anti-militarism — in Japan remains strong nearly 70 years after World War II. Defenders of Article 9 promote it as a model for Japan to hold up to the world, challenging the idea that the ability to go to war defines ‘normal’ state behaviour and confers prestige. They fear that Abe’s changes will provoke and entangle Japan in conflict rather than bolster the country’s security. 

Japanese protesters also distrust Abe’s intentions and the ideology he represents. Ignoring popular sentiment, he recently forced through a state secrecy law and relaxed Japan’s weapons export ban. Abe also leads or participates in numerous parliamentary study groups with extreme revisionist convictions related to topics including history, patriotic education, the Yasukuni Shrine and the ‘comfort women’ issue. Abe does not have a broad mandate for change on any of these issues. The majority of the public would prefer him to focus on revitalising the economy. 

There are pockets of support in Japan for Abe’s moves on security policy. Right-wing nationalists believe that Article 9 besmirches the honour of Japan’s imperial past and is a shackle to its just place as a fully sovereign state. But many moderate Japanese defence specialists have welcomed the cabinet decision on the grounds that the country’s security policy needs to respond to security challenges in the post-Cold War era. 

Some have expressed frustration that the new move is a symbolic rather than a substantial recognition of the right to exercise collective self-defence. By their reckoning more should be done, including expanding the scope of permissible peacetime activities that the SDF can conduct with other nations to allow for enhanced contingency planning and joint military exercises. Legal inconsistencies due to the peculiarities of Japan’s positive list system of what functions the SDF may perform also need addressing. 

But riding Abe’s wave to generate momentum and break through the military allergy and change Japan’s security policy has come with unwanted side effects. Japan’s relations with China and South Korea have hit unprecedented post-war lows, and the task of upgrading Japan’s security policy has been unnecessarily complicated by Abe’s stance on revisiting Japan’s history issues. 

China and South Korea stress that Abe’s historical revisionism means he must not be trusted on collective self-defence. Such pronouncements, including during President Xi Jinping and President Park Geun-hye’s joint summit in Seoul in early July, offer an easy opportunity for cheap political point scoring at home. But Abe handed them the issue on a silver platter when he visited Yasukuni Shrine in December 2013, where 14 class-A war criminals are enshrined, and by his government’s ‘re-examination’ of the Kono Statement on the treatment of wartime ‘comfort’ women. 

The US, having long called for Japan to take on greater security roles commensurate with its economic capacity, has welcomed the cabinet decision as a positive step to strengthen US–Japan alliance cooperation and increase Japan’s contributions to regional peace and stability. America’s support should also be understood in the context of President Obama’s emphasis on multilateral cooperation and the US ‘rebalancing’ to Asia. 

With this approach to security it is hoped that Japan’s exercise of collective self-defence can contribute to alleviating some of the US defence budget pressures after the billions spent on Afghanistan and Iraq, the global financial crisis and the US government shutdown in October 2013. A sense of urgency is involved, as the US and Japan have declared their intent to upgrade their defence cooperation guidelines by the end of the year. 

But for Japan to be able to say yes to collective self-defence in a more meaningful way, where it will truly be able to make ‘proactive contributions to peace’, it has to convince more than its own defence specialists and the United States. China, South Korea and the broader Japanese public also need to be brought on board. The domestic political dynamics in China and South Korea make this a complicated task. But there are a number of measures Japan can take to lay the groundwork.

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