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Jewish World Review July 12, 2005 / 5 Taamuz, 5765 Unleash Japan By Rich Lowry
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Pacifism has never been so silly. In an East Asia that features
both one of the world's most irrational states and a rising
dictatorial power bent on changing the region's strategic balance,
it is a crucial ally of the United States that labors under a
constitution that could have been written by Quakers.
Of course, it was an American team put together by Douglas
MacArthur after World War II that wrote the Japanese Constitution,
imposing pacifism as state policy. That was understandable 50 years
ago. Now the constraints of the Japanese Constitution — and the
Japanese attitudes that have preserved them — are senseless
anachronisms.
As part of her tour of Asia this week, Secretary of State Condi
Rice visited a Japan that is slowly emerging from its shell. It is
one of the diplomatic triumphs of the Bush administration that it
has helped accelerate this process. The ideal should be to make
Japan as reliable a partner of the U.S. in Asia as Britain is in
Europe.
The alliance is a natural. Japan broadly shares our values. The
U.S. is the world's No. 1 economy, and Japan is No. 2, a powerful
combination. We want to check China, and Japan feels threatened by
China. Japan provides the basing the U.S. needs at a time when we
have lost our bases in the Philippines and our relationship with
South Korea looks shaky.
It is the rough neighborhood that has helped turn Japan away
from its old pieties. North Korea is enough to shake anyone's
pacifism, and the Chinese have stupidly provoked Japan at every
turn. Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi took office in April
2001 determined to strengthen the U.S. alliance and loosen the more
restrictive postwar constraints.
Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution is the main obstacle. The
constitution — and the interpretations and policies arising from it
— bans a standing army, collective self-defense and arms exports.
Japan has a military, but it's called a Self-Defense Force, and it's
supposed to be limited to territorial defense.
Japan constantly has Talmudic debates about what defense
capabilities are permitted. For a long time, it denied itself
refueling capacity for its F-4 fighters, since that was considered
too "offensive" in nature. The prohibition on collective
self-defense means that Japan cannot come to the aid of an ally —
i.e., the United States — when attacked. The interpretation of this
prohibition has prevented even routine U.S.-Japanese cooperation.
But the restrictions have been loosening. After 9/11,
legislation was passed authorizing the Self-Defense Force to stray
beyond East Asia. Koizumi sent ships to the Indian Ocean and Arabian
Sea, where the Japanese supported the coalition efforts in
Afghanistan and Iraq. And he deployed 600 ground troops to
relatively peaceful southern Iraq.
Notably, Chinese intermediate-range missiles have a range that
means they would overshoot Taiwan. Whom could they be intended for?
Japan enraged the Chinese earlier this year when it joined the
U.S. in issuing a statement that included in a list of "common
strategic objectives" the goal of a "peaceful resolution of issues
concerning the Taiwan Strait." To the extent that China has to worry
about not just a U.S. defense, but a Japanese defense of Taiwan, it
complicates China's planning and makes a military move marginally
less likely. In general, a strong Japan creates a balance of power
in East Asia — of the sort that once existed in Europe — that
makes any Chinese hegemonic ambitions more difficult to achieve.
Of course, any more assertive Japanese moves will revive the
boogeyman of Japanese militarism. Other Asian countries have
nightmarish memories of the Japanese military.
But it is a new Japanese government, with new norms, in a new
time. The traditional restraints on it only serve to hobble what
should be one of the world's significant players on the side of
decency and civilization. Unleash Japan.
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© 2005 King Features Syndicate |
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