JAPAN: War and Peace

The Iraq war may lead to an old-fashioned arms race or to a worldwide pacifist movement. The two trends clash, as in Japan, where militaristic Shintoism is still strong, while the population generally is pacifist. Reuters (4/3/03) tells us that the Japanese are reluctant to change their pacifist constitution:

"Despite growing concern over North Korea's nuclear weapons programs, less than half of Japanese voters are in favor of revising a constitutional article that renounces war, a newspaper poll showed. The annual survey by the conservative Yomiuri Shimbun revealed that 42 per cent of respondents want to change Article Nine, steady from last year, while 18 per cent favored strict adherence to it, up from 17 per cent. Thirty per cent of voters said the article, which renounces war as a means to settle international disputes and the right to maintain a military, should be applied and interpreted as before, little changed from 31 per cent a year ago. The article, the symbol of Japan's pacifist constitution, has been interpreted by successive governments as banning Tokyo from exercising its right to collective self-defense - the use of force to counter a military attack on a foreign ally. In the Yomiuri poll, 33 per cent of respondents said Japan should be allowed to exercise collective self-defense by either changing the constitution or its interpretation, down slightly from last year's 35 per cent. Many US officials have urged Japan to change its constitution so that it can take a greater role in global security".

Ronald Hilton - 4/3/03