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A socialist newsweekly published in the interests of working people
Vol. 64/No. 37October 2, 2000


Japan's rulers push militarization drive
(back page) 
 
BY PATRICK O'NEILL  
An earthquake drill conducted in Tokyo September 3, dubbed "Tokyo Big Rescue" and involving some 7,000 soldiers, exemplifies the efforts by the Japanese rulers to strengthen their armed forces and loosen restrictions on their use both at home and abroad.

In scenes staged for dramatic impact on the watching crowds, troops rushed in to reinforce civilian rescue squads swamped by the "wounded." Shintaro Ishihara, the governor of the Tokyo prefecture, flew from neighborhood to neighborhood in a red rescue helicopter. The right-wing politician masterminded the exercise, which turned what has been a routine annual civil defense exercise into one of the largest urban military mobilizations in Japan since World War II.

The appearance of thousands of helmeted and armed troops in the heart of Japan's largest city and its capital was particularly significant, given that soldiers customarily wear civilian clothes in public.

Pushing Japanese nationalist themes, the governor has been in the forefront of a drive to refurbish the military. Ishihara scapegoats immigrants as a further rationale for his militarism--an approach consistent with the restrictive and chauvinist policies pursued by Tokyo.

In April he told an audience of members of the armed forces that "third-country nationals and foreigners who have entered Japan illegally have perpetrated heinous crimes. In the event of a major earthquake, riots could break out, and there is a limit to the police's ability to cope with such a situation alone. I want you to carry out your mission, not only to deal with natural disasters, but also to maintain law and order."

The remarks were taken as a reference to events after the 1923 Tokyo earthquake, when a pogrom was unleashed amid the devastation against immigrants from Korea. As many as 7,000 were killed in riots by mobs who included Japanese troops, whipped up by rumors that immigrants had committed sabotage or were even behind the disaster.

Ishihara was forced to apologize in response to the uproar that followed his remarks. But his security adviser resumed the anti-immigrant theme the day before the earthquake drill. "Generally speaking the Koreans have made a good adjustment to this country," said Atsuyuki Sassa, "but we still have many illegal Chinese who are penetrating this country illegally and are carrying out terrible crimes. There are Iranians, and others.... And what Mr. Ishihara was saying is that we must maintain peace and order in the case of a disaster."

So Chungo On, the director of Chosensoren, an association of residents of Korean descent, observed of Isihara and the earthquake drill that "the right wing in Japan has always been very hostile to Koreans and Chinese. These kinds of people feel that the past history of the military in Japan is glorious."  
 
A course towards stronger armed forces
"Tokyo Big Rescue" comes in the midst of a continuing economic crisis in Japan and restiveness among working people across the region in face of worsening social conditions. It is one of a number of signs of the determination of the capitalist rulers of Japan--the single imperialist power located in Asia--to beef up their military strength and project it abroad.

Washington has been pressing Tokyo to step up its role in policing the semicolonial countries of the world--especially in Asia. But as they comply, the Japanese rulers are also promoting their own interests in competition with their U.S. competitors.

More resources are being diverted towards the armed forces. Military spending in the 1998-99 fiscal year stood at nearly $43 billion, among the five highest expenditures in the world. The Japanese "Self Defense Force" numbers close to 250,000 troops.

The armed forces were less than one-third that size when they were established in 1950 as the "National Police Reserve" under U.S. General Douglas MacArthur's orders. MacArthur, who headed the U.S. military forces occupying Japan after World War II, reversed Washington's initial prohibition on the formation of Japanese military forces, as U.S. soldiers in Japan were called away to serve in the imperialist invading forces in Korea.

MacArthur's order violated a constitution imposed by Washington on Japan, which stated that "land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained." There is more open discussion among the Japanese rulers on the need to amend the so-called "peace constitution," but it has been meet with widespread opposition in Japan and unease throughout Asia.

Opposition to Tokyo's military ambitions led to an outcry against deploying forces as part of the U.S.-led aggression against Iraq in 1990. Tokyo was humiliatingly reduced to helping bankroll the onslaught to the tune of $13 billion. But the Japanese government pushed ahead and won majority backing for the dispatch of four minesweepers and two other vessels to the imperialist presence in the Gulf in April 1991.

Further steps have been taken. Japanese troops are assigned to United Nations forces in the Golan Heights, which was seized by the Israeli armed forces from Syria in 1967. They served under the same flag in Cambodia from 1992 to 1993, and in Zaire and Mozambique in the mid-1990s.  
 
Militarization stepped up
In 1998 the government raised a scare over a missile launched by north Korea. The missile flew over Japanese territory. The Diet, or parliament, passed a resolution urging the government to "take all measures to ensure the security of the people of Japan." Four surveillance satellites were launched. In March of 1999 Japanese naval destroyers fired on two ships in Japanese waters, accusing north Korea of having sent them to spy on Japan. This was the first such action by the Japanese navy since World War II.

The following month the Diet adopted bills opening the way for Japanese forces to join the U.S. military in action in "situations in areas surrounding Japan." The bills, prescribing a backup role for the Japanese military, drew criticism from Moscow and Beijing.

"If this goes ahead, Japan will be involved in a war before it knows it," said Katsumi Takeoka, a former Japanese defense minister, who commented that "the guidelines are clearly written to justify Japanese participation in a second Korean war." The parliament has begun debating a constitutional amendment weakening the document's prohibitions on military intervention abroad.

In the aftermath of north Korea's missile test, Washington and Tokyo sped up a joint program--under discussion since 1993--to develop a missile defense system aimed at giving them the ability to knock out enemy missiles in flight.

The system is a variant of the Theater Missile Defense (TMD) research by the Pentagon. The business-oriented Far Eastern Economic Review reported that "it's an open secret in Tokyo that China's burgeoning missile programme also is considered a long-term threat."  
 
The record of Japanese imperialism
To try to build an ideological backing for their course, the Japanese rulers regularly turn to appeals to the monarchy and the country's feudal past. In May, Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori said, "Japan is a divine nation with the emperor at its core and we want the people to recognize this." He refused to retract his words in the uproar that followed. The late Emperor Hirohito was head of state and a key figure in the government during Japan's invasion of China and expansion through Asia in the 1930s and early 1940s. Government statements harking back to that war of conquest provide openings for right-wing politicians like Ishihara, along with extra-parliamentary forces, to stoke up nationalist and militarist themes.

Fifty-five years after the end of World War II Washington stations close to 50,000 troops in Japan, three-quarters of them on the island of Okinawa. For decades working people there have organized protests calling for the bases' removal.

On September 11 U.S. secretary of state Madeleine Albright and Japanese foreign minister Yohei Kono signed a five-year agreement committing Tokyo to providing $4.5 billion to the bases' upkeep. The U.S. government had rejected a Japanese proposal to reduce its payments, which are described by Japanese officials as a "heavy burden."

These different contradictions and conflicts play out in a world of increasing rivalry among the imperialist powers--and a world in which long-term prospects for capitalist economic growth are bleak.

On August 15 Shintaro Ishihara joined eight cabinet ministers in a symbolic visit to a shrine in the city erected as a memorial to the 2.5 million Japanese who have died in wars since the mid 19th century. This year's ceremony marked the 55th anniversary of the end of World War II. Protesters have targeted the annual visits, explaining that their real intention is to glorify such wartime leaders as the prime minister General Hideki Tojo.

"China is almost certain to make vehement protests because it sees the shrine as a rehabilitation of Japanese militarism," said Yasushi Isobe of the Japan Institute of International Affairs.

The politicians who carried out the visit in a blaze of controversy and publicity are consciously setting out to whip up nationalist fervor and smooth the way for more military spending and more use of the armed forces. As experiences from the Gulf to the streets of Tokyo on September 3 illustrate, the target of a stronger military is working people, at home and abroad.

 
 
 
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