On Japanese Rearmament And Its Influence

With the post-war Japanese rearmament as the central point, this papermakes an investigation into the argument on the amendment to the Japaneseconstitution Clause 9, presents its ideas following the three climaxes of theconstitution amendment as the description clue, and straightens out the road tothe rising of Japanese military force. It analyzes the dynamic causes for theabrupt rising of Japanese military force since the end of the cold war and theobjectivity of the Japanese rearmament based on historical facts, anddiscusses the influence of Japan's aggressive military expansion on theinternational relations. This paper is divided into three parts.I. The birth of Japanese constitution Clause 9At the end of WWII, there were three potential parties opposing eachother over the way to deal with the vanquished nation, Japan. Those threeparties were the headquarters of the US army, the member states of the Far Eastcommittee and the Japanese government. The US wished to occupy Japan onits own in order to realize its global strategic disposition;On behalf of thecommon desire of the international society, the Far East committee required toaffix the responsibility of war to the Japanese Emperor, and to root out theJapanese militarism thoroughly;While the Japanese government tried its bestto maintain the Emperor state system in Japan. Among the trials of the threeparties, the commander-in-chief of the allied forces, Mac Arthur, demandedJapan to amend its constitution and proposed the "three-point principle" ofmaking the constitution in accordance with the US early guidelines over theoccupation of Japan. Based on the "three-point principle", the term "give upwars and disarm troops" was formulated in Clause 9 of the new constitution,which aims to dispel the distrust of the international society on Japan, to satisfythe Far East committee, and meanwhile to maintain the Emperor state systemin Japan. And the US realized its independent occupation of Japan.With the Korean War as the starting point, Japan set up the preparationtroop for police with the scale of 75,000 soldiers under the US instruction.2Then it experienced the period of peace preservation corps and developed intothe self-guard troop. The expansion of Japanese military force as well as theactual violation of the peace constitution led to the various interpretations ofthe constitution Clause 9. Two climaxes on the amendment to the constitutionset off successively in Japan in the 1950s and 1980s, with the focus on whetherthe self-guard troop had violated the constitution.II. The development of Japan's rearmament and the analysis of itsreasonsThe two-polar world pattern collapsed at the end of Cold war, and theworld developed in the direction of multi-polarization. With the change ofglobal circumstance, Japan began to reconsider its position and its security andguard structure. Promoted by the redefinition of the US and Japan's peace andguard system, Japan experienced the period of exploration to the internationalcontribution in the 1990s and the period of consolidation of the US-Japanalliance. Its intention to seek the position as a military power and to amend theconstitution became more obvious. In this process, a third climax of theconstitution amendment set off in Japan, which presented unique featurescompared with the past two.The rapid development of Japanese military force after the cold war canbe attributed to two factors. In domestic Japan, the economy experienced ahard time since the recession in 1990s, and the social problems such as classpolarization and pauperization took shape rapidly;on the other hand, a largenumber of Japanese enterprises expanded to the overseas market, whichresulted in the "hollow state" of the domestic industries, and the contradictionsin the society became more intensified. In order to ensure a stable social orderin the nation and a settled environment of the Japanese enterprises abroad, theJapanese government intends to establish new social concepts through theamendment to the constitution, and to divert the attention of the domesticcontradictions to the objective of a political and military power. In domesticpolitics, the Japanese version of neo-conservatism became more influential.The utmost goal of constitution amendment—amendment to Clause 9—wasclarified.Another factor leading to the rapid development of Japanese rearmamentis the essential change of the US-Japan security and guard system. Through theredefinition to the US-Japan security and guard system, it has shifted itsobjective from depending Japan to supporting US global strategy. The USwishes that Japan will amend the constitution to better cooperate with the USarmy. Driven by the external force of the US-Japan alliance, Japan had moreconsideration about the constitution amendment.III. International influence of Japanese rearmamentA country can only seek self-reliance in an international state of anarchy.No country will risk resting its own security on the protection of othercountries, let alone maintaining it by the peaceful ideal. A country with strongeconomic strength will inevitably demands a correspondent position ofpolitical power. Therefore we must face up to the objectivity and inevitabilityof Japanese rearmament , appraise and analyze the rising of Japan in politicaland military field calmly and objectively.Our attention to Japanese rearmament mainly concerns the possibilityfor Japan to become a new hotbed of war, and this concern is by no meansgroundless. However, in order to launch a war, a country must possess a soliddomestic foundation and a realistic external environment. The price of waramong different powers will be even higher in the current trend ofglobalization. So, objectively speaking, Japan wishes to amend the constitutionto justify its self-guard troop, which doesn't necessarily mean that it will restartthe road to war. But we cannot exclude the possibility for Japan to join in theUS military action. The greatest danger of Japanese rearmament lies in itsaggressive trend of military expansion, which will bring a lot of trouble for itsneighbor countries, and further destroy the strategic balance and stability inEast Asia.Therefore, at the cognition level, we should recognize the fact that thereisn't a mechanism of mutual trust, mutual benefit and common development. Itis a na?ve thought to hope a certain country will give up the pursuit of variousinterests due to the repentance of its history and thus lead to stability in thatarea. At practice level, the nature of Japanese rearmament has posed severechallenge for our policy towards Japan. We have to set off a scramble forbenefits with Japan in a sharper and more complicated circumstance, so that torealize the maximum of our interests sensibly and steadily.ConclusionOver the post-war 60 years, Japan has violated the spirit of its constitutionClause 9 to maintain its military force within the framework of US-Japanalliance. Each time some new event occurs in the international society, theargument over amendment or protection of the constitution is always in astalemate. As a matter of fact, there is an evident logic in the Japaneserearmament and the amendment to the Japanese constitution: Japan wishes toexpand its say and influence on the social order construction by supportingAmerica's military existence in Asia-pacific area. At the same time, suchbehavior is also a tentative method to promote the amendment of theconstitution Clause 9.the aim to amend the history textbook is to brainwashpeople, which will brew the ideal soil for half of the citizens to support theconstitution amendment, and to realize its ultimate strategic goal as a militarypower.In view of the great change in the domestic environment in Japan and theinternational situation, it is impossible to reverse the trend of constitutionamendment. However, the discussion on the constitution amendment doesn'tmention some concrete conceptions or strategies. For example, based on whatconceptions and principles will Japan motivate its army and implement militaryforce, in what way can it maintain its army and exercise the self-guard right,and so on. If the constitution is amended blindly, we will worry the futuredirection of japans' development.It is our obligation to show constant and alert concern over the Japaneserearmament and the constitution amendment caused by it.If we say Japan " This luxurious economy steamboat should explore theways to avoid the reef in its sail along the diplomatic and military channels",then we, as well as other countries in the world, including America, need tostudy the ways to eliminate japans' possible danger to the global circumstancein each step of is transformation process.