Japan, The Differently Abled Country

Good old Mainichi Shimbun. True to its moderate, working-class roots, it has published an editorial today asking a question I have been asking myself for several days now:

"What is so great about being normal?"

The editorial, entitled, "Is it bad to do it as a country of special qualities?" ("Tokushu na kuni" de wa dame ka? -- Link - J) finds that talk about Japan's need to become normal began in earnest over Japan's potential and eventually non-participation in combat in the First Gulf War. Japan's payment of 13 billion dollars in cash as its contribution to the international military campaign earned the country almost nothing in the way of thanks. Instead, demagogues and commentators, primarily in the United States, lambasted Japan for its "checkbook contribution."

In the reverberations of this seeming diplomatic catastrophe, one that had more to do with Japan's failure to open up its markets to trade than sending its troops overseas, the call arose for a "normalization" of Japan, where governments could use the Self Defense Forces more like a regular military. The most prominent outline for this transition was Ozawa Ichiro's Blueprint for a New Japan, making Ozawa, for a while, the great Japanese hope for the Americans (hard to believe that now, after the Hatoyama premiership).

Japan's struggle and need to become normal became a zeitgeist (actually, it has at times all the attributes of a cult). Just google "Japan" and "normal" or "Japan" and "normalization" to see the immense number of hits they generate.

The recent debate over the constitutionality of an exercise of Japan's UN-guaranteed right to enter into collective self defense -- a debate that is supposed to wind up today-- has highlighted more what Japan stands to lose in exercising CSD than what it is likely to gain.

And this is as it should be.

"Normal" is after all, a loaded term. Its opposite is abnormal, a state that no one would want to be in.

However, what if by historical accident, a country was at once stripped of its armed forces, like an individual ensnarled in a traffic accident who loses a limb? One can view that country or individual as being disabled, as less than normal. One would, if one completely mad, instill in that country or individual an overwhelming desire to become normal. Or, one could acknowledge that "accidents do happen" and move on, not focusing on the quantities that are lacking but the qualities that are present.

Looking upon the individual or the country as "differently abled."

There has been a perplexing disconnect between the global consensus that diversity is a positive, making organizations stronger and more flexible, and the drumbeat of those seeking a more "normal" Japan. Where is the appreciation for Japan's idiosyndratic path, the opportunities a "differently abled" Japan affords its allies? Different is supposed to be good, offering one opportunities to achieve goals in new, creative ways.

The world knowing Japan as the "the country where war is unconstitutional" means that it is possible, albeit not inevitable, for Japan and Japanese to perform functions no other nation or people can. Nakamura Tetsu, the miracle worker of Afghanistan, is adamant in believing that his Peshawar no Kai could not be the incredibly noble and effective organization it has been without locals knowing that it is run by a people that will not participate in military action. (Link)

Of course, the use of the word "normal" was facetious from the beginning. Becoming "normal" for a country with an economy the size of Japan meant becoming powerful.

And becoming powerful is the goal of Abe and Company's still tentative but nevertheless unidirectional procession down the path of toward Japanese military flexibility. Anyone who argues otherwise is being tactically mendacious.

And there is nothing wrong with Japan becoming more powerful. The United States is responsible for far more territory and far too many developments. Its commitments to its treaty allies should probably now be seen as reassuring rather than rock-solid. China seems intent on being a bad neighbor; Putin seems intent on being a villain and the Mideast, well, why would anyone want to be involved in its fratricides, except for all that lovely oil and gas?

In such an environment, a stronger Japan is desirable.

However, does Japan have to throw away its unique characteristics to cope with regional and global contigencies? The New Komeito and most honest brokers would say, "No." They have been arguing vociferously, desperately, that Japan does not have to aspire to normalcy -- just greater physical strength and flexibility.

New And A Bit Alarming: The Abe Cabinet's "Self-Defense" Category Of Action

We'll wait and see
A few days more
There might be something there that wasn't there before.

- Howard Ashman and Alan Menken
"Something There" (1991)

The above is a screen shot from the question time of the New Komeito's Toyama Kiyohiko yesterday (May 28) on the change that the Abe Cabinet is suggesting in Japan's ladder of response to threats to the security of Japan's citizens.

On the left is the current ladder, where there are only two steps, in between which is a thick line dividing

- those threats that can be handled by constabulary forces (the National Police Agency and the Japan Coast Guard), labeled "Police Power" and

- those that must be handled by the Self Defense Forces, labeled "War Power."

On the right of the panel is the New Komeito's understanding of the Yanai Commission's recommendation to the Abe government of a new, three step ladder. There is still a thick line separating "War Power" from that which is below it. However, in between "Police Power" and "War Power" is a new step, "Self Defense Power," which an assistant is helpfully indicating with the pointer. Graphically and in a real sense the new "Self Defense" zone extends down into some of what is now considered purely constabulary and up into what is currently considered purely military. The boundary line between "Police Power" and "Self Defense" is furthermore shown as being thin as compared to the boundary delimiting "War Power."

All in all a nifty little graphic representation of just one facet of the ongoing argument over the proper paradigms for Japan's security.

A lot of other panels in the battle of minds can be seen in the 7 hours and 15 minutes of yesterday's House of Representatives Budget Committee testimony, available on the Shugiin TV website at:

http://www.shugiintv.go.jp/jp/index.php?ex=VL&deli_id=43975&media_type=wb

More Toys For The Boys

J. Michael Cole's contributions to The Diplomat usually drive me up the wall. However, his report on the People's Liberation Army Navy's latest piece of aquatic hardware fails to infuriate.

Just think of what one can do with a few of these vessels.

There are those who will ask, "Why shouldn't China have a slew of the world's largest Landing Craft Air Cushion vehicles"? More often than I care to contemplate, these are the same folks who ask, "Why shouldn't Japan revise Article 9 of its Constitution"?

The answer "Because the Right to Might is not a right but an excuse" sits poorly with these people.

Later - For those who think I am prejudiced against toys, a photo image from one of the spots I visited this past weekend, the GSDF Public Information Center adjacent to the GSDF Asaka military base.


Click on image for larger view.

The tank sitting behind the "protective" (yes, I am being sarcastic here) fence is a new Type 10, the same tank the Prime Minister mounted last month.

The Information Center's 3-D GSDF promotional movie (no, I do not know why the theater is built into a simulated rock outcrop) is a must-see -- and should be required viewing for all PLA colonels and Chinese government officials.

Nobody does propaganda like this blessed land's filmmakers.

Bound Hand And Foot

In my most recent post on Abe Shinzo's soft and lazy tyranny, I referred to the New Komeito as a "restraint" upon Abe and the Liberal Democratic Party. Yesterday, in party leader's debate, Japan Restoration Party co-leader Ishihara Shintaro used a far more colorful term to describe the role the New Komeito will play in Abe & Company efforts to revise the Constitution:

"The New Komeito will without question become bindings on your hands and feet."

The term Ishihara used -- ashide matoi (足手まとい） -- is a pejorative, usually referring to clingy, needful persons rather than actual physical bindings.

Hecklers (The New Komeito has hecklers? Who knew?) immediately cried out, "Rude! Rude!" Ishihara, ever the self-assured provocateur, responded:

"What I am saying is the truth."

(Link - J)

So, a sign of the apocalypse: Ishihara Shintaro and MTC in agreement -- with the caveat that the Blinking One and I may not be copping the same attitude.

The great unfulfilled dream of the LDP is the revision of Article 9 of the Constitution. If the LDP joins forces with the JRA after the House of Councillors elections, the two parties could, with help from conservative independents and the DINOs inside the Democratic Party of Japan, get within striking distance of the 2/3rds majorities in both Houses of the Diet necessary for putting revisions of the Constitution to a national referendum.

One of the explanations for the pacifist New Komeito's continuing alliance with the LDP, an alliance that has persisted through thick and thin, with the New Komeito seeing its entire leadership go down to defeat in 2009, has been that the tie up keeps the LDP's commitment toward revision of Article 9 on an aspirational level.

With a seeming entente between the LDP and the JRA on lowering the 2/3rds threshold in Article 96, transforming constitutional revision into a cakewalk, New Komeito leader Yamaguchi Natsuo has issued a warning -- that no national consensus exists on a revision of Article 96. (Link - J)

The warning is something of a non sequitur. There is, as far as anyone knows, no national consensus on the LDP and the New Komeito controlling the government. However, because the two parties did well in the December 2012 elections, they do.

As for constitutional revision, the same principle should apply: if you have the votes, everything's on the table. Consensus is nice but nowhere in the rules. Only a believer in essentialist myths about a Japanese way would insist upon consensus being a prerequisite for action.

Despite Ishihara's labeling the New Komeito a shackle upon Abe Shinzo's and the LDP's ambitions, a JRA-New Komeito war is not preordained. Osaka City mayor and JRA co-leader has appealed to the Osaka New Komeito for its help in passing his municipal/prefectural reorganization plans, offering to cooperate with the New Komeito in national elections. The New Komeito also remained neutral in the gubernatorial and mayoral campaign last year, helping Hashimoto and his deputy Matsui Ichiro win both spots. (Link)

Furthermore, the JRA, which received an astonishing 12 million proportional seat votes in the December election and which is largely on course to pick up whatever seats the LDP and the New Komeito do not win in this summer's election, failed to win what should have been walkover municipal elections on April 14, revealing a precipitous deceleration in the forward momentum of the Hashimoto juggernaut. (Link - J)

We might be seeing Hashimoto paying a rare courtesy call on New Komeito members, asking them to quietly ignore the Sick Old Man and his "truths."

As for Article 9, the Cabinet has in its usual unanimous way (meaning with the New Komeito going along) just issued a Cabinet Decision approving a bill making it possible for members of the Ground Self Defense Forces to deploy for the purpose of facilitating the evacuation of Japanese citizens from foreign war zones or disaster areas. Until now, the law on Self Defense Forces overseas rescue dispatches only permitted the dispatch of Air Self Defense Forces planes and Maritime Self Defense Forces ships, with the transports and their crews confined to airport or port areas of the foreign country. (Link - J)

If the language of Article 9 can be construed as not impeding an armed and ready GSDF from driving around hither and yon in faraway conflict zones looking for folks to rescue, the imperative for revision of the article seems rather weak.

Later - For an English language report on the Cabinet Decision from Kyodo News via The Japan Times, click here.

Image courtesy: NHK

Sourabh Gupta on Japan's Security Policy Choices

Sourabh Gupta is a Senior Research Associate at Samuels International Associates and an East Asia Forum Distinguished Fellow. He frequently delivers an intellectual EMP blast, knocking folks' lights out on the other side of the planet.

In his most recent piece published by the EAF, Gupta makes a series of predictions regarding Japan's security policies:

The separate approaches in terms of strategic concepts, command, control and battle management systems, operational planning and crisis action procedures will not be abolished. Rather, a fresh division of bilateral roles and mission responsibilities will progressively chip away at the separation – a process that from Tokyo's point of view will be geared as much to advancing the 'normal nation' defence capabilities as to enhancing interoperability within the alliance. Japan used activities conducted under alliance auspices in Iraq and Afghanistan — such as participation in multinational peacekeeping and humanitarian operations, deploying forces overseas during times of active hostilities, and liberalising rules on supplying weapons and transporting armaments — to push the boundaries of Japanese rearmament.

Similarly, a carefully calculated set of constitutional reinterpretations can be expected to pass into legislation in coming years. The effect of these reinterpretations will be progressively to blur definitional lines between conflict and post-conflict operations, combat and non-combat zones, and military and policing activities, which still limit Japan's involvement in alliance missions within carefully prescribed thresholds. The right to exercise collective self-defence in narrowly circumscribed situations in areas surrounding Japan will also be admitted. Fundamentally though, the geopolitical separation that is built into the heart of the alliance, and the corresponding flexibility to hedge against entrapment or abandonment, will be preserved.

(Link)*

If Abe Shinzo's Liberal Democratic Party and Hashimoto Toru's Japan Restoration Party do well enough in the next election, and if the two parties can find a way to cooperate despite Hashimoto's titanic ego and narcissism, maybe.

I am even less sure about the claims made in this passage:

First, unlike the British interest in manipulating the continental balance of power, the notion of aligning against the stronger power to contain its influence is at odds with the Japanese tradition. Rather, the inclination of statecraft has been to pursue policies of strategic detachment or isolation. The next best option, when this has not been possible, is to forge amicable ties with whichever foreign state appeared to demonstrate the most impressive combination of military, economic and cultural power. Equally, efforts by Great Britain and US in the modern era and China throughout much of Japanese history to involve Japan in the region's strategic balance have mostly been unsuccessful because Tokyo has avoided a too-intimate strategic association with its foreign ally or mentor. Japan is not the UK of East Asia and will not assume the role of regional offshore balancer.

Second, the meteoric rise of China at a time of receding US primacy is placing Japan's choices at odds with its enduring principles.

Adaptive resilience to the reality of Chinese power is not the issue here. The stability of central authority in Beijing has been among the surest guarantors of Japan's domestic stability and external security. Rather, it is the need to hedge against the destabilization that is rippling through the East Asian periphery, as a by-product of the rise of Chinese power. A stable, ideally prosperous, periphery has been the indispensable condition of Japan's national security. Historically, the Korean Peninsula and the Taiwan Strait have served as the outer ramparts of Japan's defence perimeter. Time and again power vacuums or instability on the peninsula and within the straits have tempted entanglements in Korea and Taiwan, and stability has allowed Japan's strategic view to turn homewards.

First, two technical issues. One, meteors tend not to rise. They tend to either burn up in the upper atmosphere (luckily this is most of the time) or hit the ground, becoming meteorites. Only the occasional one is on the right course and has sufficient mass and momentum to take take the brief tour through Earth's upper atmosphere only to rise up into space. Two, for most of Japan's history, Tokyo has not been the de jure capital or even the de facto capital. Using Tokyo as a shorthand for Japan's government is unsound (the use of Beijing as a shorthand for China's government may be, depending on how far back in time Gupta wishes us to look, similarly unsound).

As to more substantive issues, while it is hard to argue with the recurring patterns in the historical record, this blessed land happens to be no longer under military management, as it was for most of the last 900 years. Talk of enduring principles without reference to the type of government a state has at a particular time seems a leap of faith.

Subtracting democratic governance also leads to errors in gauging the intensity of a government's responses. Democracy tends at once a force multiplier in defense and a dampening factor upon the expansionist inclinations of states. For those who note the two century-old tendency of the United States to go marching out on military expeditions of varying length all around the globe ("From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli," as the U.S. Marine Corps' hymn puts it) despite its democratic form of government, the resultant empire is, Robert Dujarric puts it, largely an informal one.

As for stability and prosperity on China's periphery, that is a great concept. A swing around the states on China's periphery, however, finds damn few that are either stable or prosperous. Nevertheless, China has signed agreements with most of them delineating its borders, setting hard limit on the China/Not China divide.

Indeed, the more legitimate and stable a government is and the more prosperous the state, the less likely it is that China will have resolved its differences with it (Those in the back with their hands up, South Korea is both effectively an island state, separated as it is from China by the black, uncrossable moat that is North Korea, and also in a fight with China over ownership of Socotra Rock).

The contention that instability or power vacuums in Beijing or on the Korean peninsula are goads to Japan's intervening in continental affairs belongs in the "Been There/Done That" tray. The Korean peninsula is divided, with two states on a hair-trigger and one of those states undergoing a halting and stilted leadership transition. And Japan is...where? Furthermore, "stability has allowed Japan's strategic view to turn homewards" is an Ann Elk Theory.

On a final note, Gupta needs to talk to the editors of the EAF regarding his previous featured post, "Japan and China's latest spat over the Senkakus" (23 September 2012). Not one -- and this is not necessarily his fault -- of the links in the essay seems to connects to a text supporting the assertion Gupta is making.

---------------------
* For reader/blog author Janne Morén, a warning. Clicking on the link will bring you into contact with such a liberal use of unmoored quotations marks as to put you off your lunch.

Hashimoto Toru Says No

One of Abe Shinzo's main selling points, if not his only one in the Liberal Democratic Party presidential election, was his purportedly having mesmerized Osaka City mayor Hashimoto Toru. The conventional wisdom was that if any one of the five candidates in presidential contest was going to work out an entente with Hashimoto's Japan Restoration Party, it was going to be Abe.

Post-House of Representatives election, maybe. Pre-election? No.

Hashimoto went out of his way yesterday to tell a grand lie on Abe's behalf, saying that he was a trustworthy politician:

"I have great expectations for him. I believe him a politician in whom one can place one's trust. I would like to for him to pull the LDP in his wake."

(Link - J)

He also noted that in terms of reform of the constitution, he and Abe were on the same page.

Unfortunately for those in the LDP who were hoping that the 42 year-old Hashimoto would defer in awe to his 58 year-old senior, Hashimoto also noted that the JNR's commitment to the Trans Pacific Partnership and the phaseout of the use of nuclear power were at odds with the LDP's positions on these issues.

As for the all-important matter of election cooperation, Hashimoto dumped a bucketful of ice water on the concept, saying that JNR, which formally begins operations on Friday, will run a candidate in every district possible, irrespective of the LDP's candidate in that district. (J)

Ostensibly Hashimoto's promise means that the JNR could field a candidate in Abe's Yamaguchi #4 district -- not that that would be a very wise move in terms of a post-election bargaining position.

Hashimoto's promise also means that old wine LDP and fresh face JNR candidates could split the right-leaning vote, allowing the centrist Democratic Party of Japan candidates to sneak away with the districts.

Not a pleasant thought for the LDP membership.

As for fresh faces, the JNR secretariat is looking at capping the number of Diet members allowed to flee to the party at around 15 (J). JNR leaders are aware that the party can hardly present itself as an insurgent movement if its ranks are stuffed with retreads from the LDP, DPJ and Your Party. Nine current members of the Diet sat in on the JNR's most recent policy roundtable. These nine are slated to be introduced as party candidates at Friday's unveiling.

JNR leaders are also aware that the party relies on its early converts and those who enrolled in Hashimoto's juku for both ground forces and funding. With the party refusing corporate and union donations, and ineligible for public funding until April of next year, it needs to dangle candidacies as rewards for the sacrifices party workers and supporters must make.

The Japan-Taiwan War Of 2012

It began on this day, with the Japan Coast Guard firing water cannons at Taiwanese fishing vessels and Taiwan coast guard ships replying by firing water cannons at the JCG vessels. (J)

And, according to NHK, the Crown Prince has been selected to attend the wedding of Hereditary Grand Duke of Luxembourg, Hereditary Prince of Nassau and Prince of Bourbon-Parma Guillaume Jean Joseph Marie.

Thank you NHK, for that timely and vital bit of news.

As for the Taiwanese coast guard personnel, I hope they understand that the Japan Coast Guard is a constabulary force, meaning that Article 9 of the Constitution does not apply.

Image courtesy: Yomiuri Online

Circumlocutions - Why It Has To Be A Missile

Scholar Earl Kinmonth, who has very little tolerance for ungrounded concepts, has a post up on the SSJ Forum on the proliferation of phrases describing the North Korean launch vehicle as being "really a missile" -- with the emphasis on the adverb -- a subject I touched upon in my bantamweight post of Saturday.

Last night, NHK tried out a brand new phrase describing the DPRK launch vehicle:

人工衛星としている、実情にミサイル

"The what-is-in-reality-a-missile, acting out the part of an artificial satellite..."

On Saturday, I half out of facetiousness, half out of actual confusion, asked the reader to chose a potential force mandating these verbal tangles.

Yesterday, I played around with the idea that refusing to call the DPRK launch vehicle a "rocket" was a way of expressing contempt for the DPRK's history of sophistry and duplicity. However, that theory had a weakness in that it is hard to get everyone to share a feeling, even in a mass-market society with a strong conformist streak.

This morning I think I have it...and it is one these, "Duh, MTC, what else could it have been?" answers that leaves one thankful there is coffee for solace's sake:

Japanese media outlets do not call the North Korean rocket a rocket because if it were a rocket, then the Self Defense Forces could not shoot it down.

The Japanese government is a stickler about terminology most of the time. On defense and security issues, however, it is outright fanatical. Fall into any kind of linguistic fuzziness on security and one runs the risk of slamming right into the wall of Article 9 of the Constitution.

Ballistic missile defense (BMD) has been judged permissible under Article 9. The term is translated directly; in Japanese it is "dando misairu boei" (弾道ミサイル防衛). If one is to use BMD to bring down anything, that thing had better be a missile. Shooting at anything else would be unconstitutional.

So, as is so often the case with these tortured circumlocutions, the reasoning is transparently practical. Call it a missile and you can shoot at it. Call it anything else and you are left with nothing but watching and praying.

A spanner in the works

Wow, did the judges in Nagoya throw the government for a loop yesterday, ruling that the dispatch of the Air Self Defense Forces to Iraq is unconstitutional.

Japan Court Rules Sending Troops to Iraq Illegal, Kyodo Says
Bloomberg

By Naoko Fujimura April 17 -- A Japanese court said the country's dispatch of troops to Iraq was unconstitutional, becoming the first court to rule the mission illegal, Kyodo news service said.

Airlifting activities by Japan's Air Self-Defense Force in connection with the U.S.-led war in Iraq violate Japan's constitution, which renounces war, Presiding Judge Kunio Aoyama at the Nagoya High Court in central Japan said, according to Kyodo.

Even though the court declined to suspend the mission or award damages, plaintiffs won't appeal the ruling, the report said. Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda told reporters the decision won't affect Self-Defense Force activities in Iraq, Kyodo said.

The court ruled that the air dispatch was not just unconstitutional, but illegal, the flights into Baghdad violating the provision of the Special Measures for Humanitarian and Reconstruction Assistance Law limiting the activities of the Self Defense Forces in Iraq to "areas outside of a zone of conflict".

The response of the government? Dismisssive. "Heck, it's non-binding. So no problem." According to the Tokyo Shimbun, one legislator even said, "The lead judge just wanted his name to go down in history." (He did have a little caveat, continuing, "Even so, it's a problematic ruling.")

[Just an aside--but is it not interesting that when a judge rules that what a street criminal did is illegal, the street criminal is universally condemned, particularly by the law-and-order types in the Diet, as having been a bad, bad person. However, when a judge rules that what the politicians have done is illegal...it is the judge who is wrong!

Perhaps politicians, when they were young, were taught to not respect the law by leftist teachers who would not sing the national anthem.]

The ruling represents a shot in the arm for a lot of causes that had fallen moribund.

The ruling will revive the Democratic Party's fight to withdraw the SDF from the Mideast, the next hurdles being the renewal of the Indian Ocean dispatch in January of next year (it was for only one more year, was it not?) and then in July, the renewal of the law permitting the ASDF flights in and out of Iraq.

The ruling will also revive the constitutional revision crowd, many of whom must have been stunned at the Yomiuri poll of a week ago showing that the number of respondents thinking the constitution in need of revision fell below the number of those thinking the constitution should be kept as it is. If the constitution does not permit the dispatch of the planes, and a dispatch of the planes is indeed vital to Japan's overall security--then efforts must be made to have the constitution amended, with popular disquiet an issue that needs be dealt with by-the-by.

Another group who can take heart in the ruling is a broad coalition of folks from all points in the political spectrum who share a common, humble wish: that the courts of the land force everyone, even the powerful and the influential, to obey the law as it is written. The Nagoya court looked at the words of the law and decided that they meant something--and in this land, that is no mean achievement.