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Intermediate Japanese - Free Online Course
FUTSŪ NO KUNI
普通の国
"a normal country"
The current Japanese Constitution officially renounces the use of war. This is spelled out in Article 9, the so-called “No War Clause”:
“Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, 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.
In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, 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.”
-Japanese Consitutution, Article 9
This restriction on the fundamental right of national self-defense is of course radical. It can only be understood in the context of the post-World War II era during which the Japanese Constitution was written.
Following its defeat in World War II, Japan was occupied by the Allied Powers, led by Douglas MacArthur, whose Supreme Command for the Allied Powers (SCAP) was ultimately charged with reforming Japanese society and government along peaceful, democratic lines. A key element of this process was the draft of a new national constitution.
During the war, the Axis Powers (Japan, Nazi Germany, and Fascist Italy) had plunged the world into an unprecedented period of violence and bloodshed. Japan’s invasions of China and other Asian countries resulted in millions of civilian deaths. Permanently hobbling the country’s military seemed like the best course of action—for the sake of Japan and the rest of the world as well. Article 9 also had an historical precedent of sorts. It was influenced by the idealism of the 1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact, a post-World War I treaty which sought to outlaw war among the nations of Europe.
Article 9 and the Cold War
Despite the idealism surrounding the Japanese Constitution, the U.S. government would soon find cause to regret the inclusion Article 9 in the document. In the late 1940s, the Cold War began to heat up, and Japan was seen as a crucial strategic position in the struggle. The communist threat soon replaced fears of a resurgent Japanese military.
When the Korean War broke out, Allied Occupation authorities approved the formation of limited Japanese military. The so-called “self-defense forces” (jiei-tai / 自衛隊) were founded in 1950 by the order of SCAP.
Many American officials would have preferred a rearmed Japan as a counterbalance to communist power in Asia. Japan’s pacifism, however, was now set in stone. While Japan remained a loyal American ally throughout the Cold War; it did not play a direct military role in the four decade-long conflict.
Rethinking Pacifism in the Twenty-first Century
The Cold War is now over; but Japanese pacifism has once again become a source of public controversy. From the late 1940s through the late 1980s, America’s overriding strategic concern was the containment of the Soviet Union and, to a lesser extent, the People’s Republic of China. This meant a heavy U.S. military presence in Japan and neighboring South Korea.
The U.S. still maintains about 50,000 troops in Japan; but in 2004, the Pentagon announced plans to withdraw 12,000 of the 37,000 troops stationed along the Demilitarized Zone between South Korea and North Korea. While the United States could still respond to a crisis on the Korean peninsula, the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq have clearly diverted America’s attention from East Asia.
North Korea is a major source of anxiety for the Japanese. The hard-line Stalinist state was not touched by the democratic wave that toppled so much of the communist world in the early 1990s. The current leader, Kim Jong Il, is bellicose and unpredictable. Kim has actively pursued a nuclear weapons program, and on several occasions test-fired missiles over the Sea of Japan.
The Japanese are also concerned about the growing military power of China. In 1996, Chinese warships threatened nearby Taiwan with a series of provocative military exercises in the Taiwan Strait. Since then, Japan and China have occasionally squabbled over territorial issues.
This new state of affairs has prompted a public debate about the relevance of Japan’s sixty-year-old constitution. The term futsū no kuni (a normal country) has become a buzzword among those who advocate the revision of Article 9 to allow for a more robust military. Following the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, Japan dispatched support personnel to Iraq and the Persian Gulf area. Public opposition to these deployments was minimal.
The Japanese government has recently spoken of the need to shift Japan from a “peace-loving” nation to a “peace supporting” nation. Plans have been announced to develop a joint missile defense program with the U.S. In 2006, the command structure of Japan’s land, sea, and air self defense forces was streamlined, placing all of the forces under a centralized command. The move is an effort to make the forces more responsive in the event of a threat.
Despite the consolidation, however, the terms army, navy, and air force will still not be used. Japan’s military will retain the more pacifist label of “self-defense forces.” Moreover, commanders in the self-defense forces will continue to refrain from wearing their uniforms in public. (Japanese military officers wear civilian clothes when driving to work, and change into their uniforms only after they have arrived at their bases.)