politics

Abe renews pledge to change constitution to include reference to SDF

31 Comments
By Eugene Hoshiko

The requested article has expired, and is no longer available. Any related articles, and user comments are shown below.

© Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

©2024 GPlusMedia Inc.


31 Comments
Login to comment

"Self-Defense Force can accomplish their duties with sense of pride." I think you find that they are are already achieved this, they have joined the forces, been trained, part of the training is to work together as a team, I am sure they are very proud people already. Abe san I think you need to focus on other home issues first, like suicide rates in children and adults, combating bulling, reducing corruption in the work place and the government, stopping the exploitation of children.

2 ( +19 / -17 )

Brian, I agree that there are far more important things to do than make money for arms manufacturers. Abe dreams of returning Japan to its pre-war "glories." He's stuck in the past. And for most Japanese, luckily, it's a past they don't want to repeat.

1 ( +20 / -19 )

The rising imperialist Japan, and the red kamakazi flag flies once again..So much for peace...War Monger Abe is stuck in the past, but forgot that his family ancestors were never in the forefront of hot combat.

-9 ( +13 / -22 )

If the SDF forces do not accomplish their duties with a "sense of pride" as Abe is telling, then there has to be something wrong with the morality within the SDF-forces! Do they not see pride in defending one's country?

You should be honoured and grateful to serve your country, regardless whether it's stated in the constitution or not! Abe you spout out different pointless views about changing a rather perfectly working article. You managed to allow collective self-defense in 2015, what more do you want!

Cut the abenomics, cut the corruption, cut the favortism, cut the plutocracy, and for god sake let someone else with a more modern political stance come through.

-7 ( +12 / -19 )

I can't understand Abe's fixation with changing the constitution, Is this Abe doing the US's bidding, just so that Japanese can be dragged into conflicts that America creates. Then what will be the Japanese peoples response be when military personnel start returning home in body bags. As for pride, that's what everyone should achieve in everything they do. Japan is fine as it is, the Japanese constitution is respected worldwide, does Japan really want to be like America, run by Neocons who are just looking for a conflict to appease the mighty military industrial complex, who actually run the US foreign policy

-2 ( +16 / -18 )

They could retain the war renouncing bit and still recognise the constitutionality of the SDF.

16 ( +20 / -4 )

China and the rest of Asia has not forgotten the realities of the actual "past". They will not allow it to happen again.

-8 ( +10 / -18 )

The arrows hardly hit their mark but at least gramps will be pleased.

-11 ( +5 / -16 )

He just wont let up, will he.

-7 ( +10 / -17 )

Abe will not achieve constitutional reform in this decade or the next. Demoscopy experts calculate that there will be no political and social conditions until at least 2035. Provided that the PM of the time has the political condition of liberal social democrat. Something that the PM Abe does not have. I wouldn't worry for the moment. His attempt at reform will fail right now.

-11 ( +5 / -16 )

Modern Japan should be proud of it's peace loving defence only present. A wonderful country and people, now admired and respected by most people. I hope the Japanese people reject Abe the war mongers plans.

-9 ( +8 / -17 )

Many Japanese conservatives see Japan's U.S.-drafted constitution as a humiliation imposed after their World War II defeat.

Let me fix this for you:

Many Japanese conservatives see Japan's U.S.-drafted constitution as a humiliation imposed after their World War II defeat.  Because they DONT have the guts to admit what actually happened in the 1930-40s!

There done!

-11 ( +4 / -15 )

Strikebreaker555

Japan's current defense laws are clearly unconstitutional. The reason no court annuls these laws is because they are necessary in practical terms. And they invent any rhetorical excuse to allow illegal acts in the law itself. SDFs should not legally exist and the accumulation of war assets by those forces should be dissolved and dismantled. According to the very supreme law of Article 9.

minello7

Unfortunately, article 9 of the constitution is now a wet piece of paper. The Japanese government has deliberately ignored that article for decades. It is as if there is no such article. Right now Japan has marine infantry corps, submarines, destroyers, armored forces, combat fighters, medium-range ballistic missiles, they will soon have supersonic missiles, and this year the Japanese railgun project for JSDF was presented.

All this with Article 9 in force. The problem is that this article is obsolete and needs to be updated with the current weather. The 1947 conditions are not the same in 2018.

I personally believe that Abe is the least suitable politician to lead a constitutional reform. But that reform is already needed to legally recognize JSDF as a military force. The question for the future is, who will be the politicians who will lead that future reform?

We don't know yet. It's quite possible that the Japanese who lead it still don't know.

3 ( +4 / -1 )

Revising the constitution is indeed a necessary. Just because Japan is going to revise the constitution does not mean Japan is gonna start WWIII. Japan is now a close ally of the United States. What PM Abe is doing is that he is trying to raise the morale of the SDF by giving them their pride as imperial soldiers once again. The name Self-Defense Force is kind of disgraceful; Japanese soldiers have always been known as the Imperial Army yet they are not allowed to call themselves members of the Imperial Army because the constitution stands in their way. Just because the SDF are gonna become the IJA again; it really doesn't make much of a difference. This is a change that boosts pride and morale and makes Japan great again. Japan would like to be America's equivalent friend and ally rather than a subordinate or an underling. Until the name change, Japan feels inferior. This name change or revision of the constitution is kind of like a "complex". Nothing more, nothing less. America need not worry. Japan is a friend of with Western powers.

0 ( +4 / -4 )

PM Abe should change the title JSDF to Armed Forces of Japan and strengthen it so that Tokyo can then have an independent foreign policy that is free from the tentacles of Uncle Sam.

In this way Nippon can then help super Japan-friendly Taiwan by re-establishing full diplomatic ties with the ROC .

-1 ( +2 / -3 )

There is nothing wrong with changing the constitution written by America. Japan as a soverign nation has all the same rights as every other Country and I see nothing wrong with making the required changes that will remove the phrases that limit Japans options more than any other.

Many do not want Japan to be equal to other countries and prefer to have a Japan with its arms tied behind it's back when and if it is threatened in the future.

I prefer a Japan that has all its options open to it just like everyone else in Asia. An even playing field for all.

4 ( +5 / -1 )

Mahesvara-of-JapanToday  11:26 pm JST

This is a change that boosts pride and morale and makes Japan great again. 

Like it was "great" in the 1930s, you mean?

-3 ( +2 / -5 )

cracaphatToday  11:54 pm JST

Abe looks like he's drooling in his pants wondering back to the Imperialistic days of yesteryear Japan,as he stands in the open car,vowing to the war criminals/Yasukuni shrine, to make Japan militarily great again.

I'm sure he just loves getting all done up in his top hat and tails so he can fantasise about living in 1938. Of course that wasn't a good time to be a Japanese prime minister, what with all the insane army officers ready to try to murder any politician who said anything they didn't like. Incidentally, from the article...

"Abe, wearing a tuxedo..."

It's morning dress. Not a tuxedo.

-2 ( +3 / -5 )

Well spotted Simon Foston, shame no onelse noticed, including the author!

-2 ( +2 / -4 )

“One else”

oh for an edit button.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

I think that Japan must try harder to keep it's nationalists under control, before it amends it's war renouncing constitution.

-3 ( +1 / -4 )

englisc aspyrgendToday 12:53 am JST

Well spotted Simon Foston, shame no onelse noticed, including the author!

I was being pedantic but only vulgar people call anything worn during the day a "tuxedo."

0 ( +2 / -2 )

Many Japanese conservatives see Japan's U.S.-drafted constitution as a humiliation imposed after their World War II defeat.

If THAT'S their intention, to reverse a law imposed on them, then why not pledge to legalize cannabis as well? After all,

Following the country’s defeat in 1945, however, the U.S. authorities occupying Japan brought with them American attitudes toward cannabis. Washington had effectively outlawed cannabis in the United States in 1937 and now it moved to ban it in Japan. In July 1948, with the nation still under U.S. occupation, it passed the Cannabis Control Act — the law that remains the basis of anti-cannabis policy in Japan today.

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2014/04/19/lifestyle/cannabis-the-fiber-of-japan/#.W8P03vZuKcw

-2 ( +1 / -3 )

Simon - nothing wrong with getting things right (and if that be pedantry, so be it). On a more serious note it tends to suggest a lack of professionalism in the author.

Aly, the USA outlawed Cannabis in 37 so as to use it as a control mechanism against Mexican immigrants, they took a leaf out of California’s play book who earlier had outlawed Opium so as to control the Chinese immigrants.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

For everyone that seems to think that by simply recognising the fact that Japan has a military and giving it the respect it deserves, will somehow kickstart Japan on a path of resetablishing its Imperialistic ambitions and somehow picking up where WWII left off, are deluded and seriously need to examine or study history!

Its fantastical to suggest that, and also comical! Japan has no agenda to do that nor is anyone in any thinktank of policy forum even suggesting that! Even the Nippon Kaigi don't promote that, so where this comes from is bizarre!

Lets try a different tact. for those not from Japan, imagine if your military was not allowed to call itself that, and that they had to serve and live by a set of rules and regulation imposed upon them by an occupying force that was hell bent on originally destroying any means of defence possible. How would you feel? Imagine the US being told that that, or the UK, even Germany was allowed to have a military after WWII so why cant Japan?

Its always the naysayers and the ones that moan about defence that are the first to complain when someone attacks and nothing was there to stop it! Stop living in the realms of fantasy and come into the real world! Its time for change and recognition. Lets hope this passes soon and then we can look at revising the rest of the constitution, one that's fit for purpose and written by the Japanese for Japan!

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

seriously need to examine or study history!

YOU really should be taking your own advice on this one me thinks!

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

joyridingonthetitanicOct. 15  06:57 pm JST

Lets try a different tact. for those not from Japan, imagine if your military was not allowed to call itself that, and that they had to serve and live by a set of rules and regulation imposed upon them by an occupying force that was hell bent on originally destroying any means of defence possible. How would you feel? 

Indifferent. Especially if I knew it was basically my country's own fault.

Imagine the US being told that that, or the UK, even Germany was allowed to have a military after WWII so why cant Japan?

Perhaps Japan can't have a military because unlike Germany, it doesn't have very good relationships with its closest neighbours due to the attitudes of nationalist politicians who aren't very contrite about the past?

Stop living in the realms of fantasy and come into the real world!

Good advice for men in top hats and tails dreaming of going back to the good old days when their grandparents were running everything.

Its time for change and recognition.

No, it's time to stop wasting time on what it says on bits of paper and focus on some problems that actually affect people in their daily lives, like wages, social security, gender equality and childcare support.

Lets hope this passes soon and then we can look at revising the rest of the constitution, one that's fit for purpose and written by the Japanese for Japan!

Written by some LDP committee for LDP voters, more like.

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

Login to leave a comment

Facebook users

Use your Facebook account to login or register with JapanToday. By doing so, you will also receive an email inviting you to receive our news alerts.

Facebook Connect

Login with your JapanToday account

User registration

Articles, Offers & Useful Resources

A mix of what's trending on our other sites