David McNeill: Japan Rearms
[David McNeill writes regularly for the Chronicle of Higher Education, the London Independent and other publications. He is a coordinator of Japan Focus. This is an extended version of an article that was carried in the Irish Times on Feb. 25, 2007.]
... The specter of a remilitarized, aggressive Japanese nationalism is something of a journalistic cliché and is rejected by some who call it a much needed readjustment to the new security ‘realities’ of Asia. Some describe it is merely a great power sloughing off the outdated constitutional shackles of the Cold War and say China, which is not above exaggerating the Japanese threat for its own political ends, is the real menace to the region.
That ignores the tit-for-tat nature of rearmament. Japan’s determination to push a joint missile defense system, which was handed a recent budget increase of 30 percent (to Yen 182.6 billion) has already provoked a warning by Beijing that it could “destroy the balance of international security forces and…cause a new arms race.”
Moreover, the profound, post-1990 reordering of the country’s political and military architecture is built on unsteady foundations. Tokyo has simply not persuaded the rest of Asia that it has truly come to terms with the past. As it moves closer to its American military partner and sheds the decades-old restrictions on military activity, the prospect of a remilitarized Japan fills many neighboring countries with trepidation.
The country's uneasiness with history is on display in a museum in the nearby maritime base town of Kure, dedicated to the Yamato, the biggest battleship of World War II. The museum is filled with passive expressions like “extension of the battle lines” as though the war, like bad weather, simply descended on the guileless people of Japan instead of being fuelled by disastrous political decisions.
In the Maritime SDF base in Edajima, young military officers graduate as they did 70 years ago under a shower of cherry blossom petals. We are pointed to an ancient cherry blossom tree in the courtyard, the subject of a famous wartime song, Doki No Sakura, sung by doomed kamikaze pilots who are eulogized in an on-base museum. ...
Read entire article at Japan Focus
... The specter of a remilitarized, aggressive Japanese nationalism is something of a journalistic cliché and is rejected by some who call it a much needed readjustment to the new security ‘realities’ of Asia. Some describe it is merely a great power sloughing off the outdated constitutional shackles of the Cold War and say China, which is not above exaggerating the Japanese threat for its own political ends, is the real menace to the region.
That ignores the tit-for-tat nature of rearmament. Japan’s determination to push a joint missile defense system, which was handed a recent budget increase of 30 percent (to Yen 182.6 billion) has already provoked a warning by Beijing that it could “destroy the balance of international security forces and…cause a new arms race.”
Moreover, the profound, post-1990 reordering of the country’s political and military architecture is built on unsteady foundations. Tokyo has simply not persuaded the rest of Asia that it has truly come to terms with the past. As it moves closer to its American military partner and sheds the decades-old restrictions on military activity, the prospect of a remilitarized Japan fills many neighboring countries with trepidation.
The country's uneasiness with history is on display in a museum in the nearby maritime base town of Kure, dedicated to the Yamato, the biggest battleship of World War II. The museum is filled with passive expressions like “extension of the battle lines” as though the war, like bad weather, simply descended on the guileless people of Japan instead of being fuelled by disastrous political decisions.
In the Maritime SDF base in Edajima, young military officers graduate as they did 70 years ago under a shower of cherry blossom petals. We are pointed to an ancient cherry blossom tree in the courtyard, the subject of a famous wartime song, Doki No Sakura, sung by doomed kamikaze pilots who are eulogized in an on-base museum. ...