PRIME Minister Shinzo Abe and the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) have further consolidated their political gains after the latest round of elections to the upper house of the Diet, held in the third week of July. The LDP will now have the brute majority in both the lower and upper house that will help the government to pass controversial legislation relating to the constitution and other important issues. Though the upper house is not as powerful as the lower house, it has the power to block legislation. Abe was voted back into power for a second consecutive term on his pledge to revive the Japanese economy. However, it was under his watch that China overtook Japan as the world's second biggest economy. Abe's economic policies, “Abenomics”, have resulted in a 4 percent growth in the economy and the stock market has made a recovery of sorts. It still has not lifted Japan out of recession. To spur economic growth, the prime minister has to take some tough decisions before the year ends. Many of these measures could prove to be unpopular.

Abe has indicated that he will be raising sales tax from the current 4 percent to 8 percent and cut the country's 36 percent corporate tax to trigger growth. Abe also wants Japan to join the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) initiative of the Obama administration. This economic grouping is a counter to the One Belt, One Road (OBOR) initiative of the Chinese government. Almost all the countries in the region, barring the notable exception of Japan and India have signed up for the ambitious OBOR project. In contrast, only 11 countries have indicated their willingness to sign up for the TPP.

But the most controversial decisions that are envisaged by the Abe administration in the immediate future are the revision of Japan's pacifist constitution and the restarting of Japan's nuclear reactors. Abe wants language relating to restrictions on the use of force to resolve conflicts to be removed from the constitution. Many of the reactors were shut down after the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Public opinion remains steadfast in its opposition to the revision of the Japan's pacifist constitution and against the country's excessive dependence on nuclear energy.

RIGHTWARD

SHIFT

The reshuffle of the cabinet that took place soon after the upper house elections provides a clear indication of the rightward nationalist shift underway in Japanese politics. The most important appointment was that of Tomomi Inada as defense minister. Inada is an outspoken nationalist. She is leading member of the Nippon Kaigi (Japan Conference) consisting of right wing parliamentarians who are unapologetic about Japan's wartime history and atrocities. The parliamentary group has been demanding the revision of the constitution for years now along with the rewriting of Japanese wartime history. The Nippon Kaigi holds on the myth that Japan was on a mission to liberate Asia from the yoke of European colonialism. Inada is a regular visitor to the Yasukuni shrine which honours the Japanese war dead. She has gone to the extent of denying that the Nanjing massacre in which over 3,00,000 Chinese were brutally executed. The visits to the Yasukuni shrine by Abe and other leaders have infuriated public opinion in Korea and China.  

Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution forbids Japan to wage war or maintain an army for the purpose of conducting a war. The recent acknowledgment by the American vice president, Joseph Biden, that the Japanese constitution was actually drafted by the American occupation forces will be used by the nationalists who dominate the LDP to justify their demands. Abe and his supporters want to remove the last vestiges of American occupation so that Japan can once again chart a course to regain the big power status it had lost after World War 11. Biden was reacting to the Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump's statement that America should stop subsidising the military expenditure of the Japanese and let them the option to acquire nuclear weapons to protect themselves from the                   so- called threats coming from countries like China and North Korea. 

Successive Japanese prime ministers since the 1960's have seen to it that the Japanese armed forces under the nomenclature of “self defense forces” has emerged as one of the strongest and best equipped military force in Asia. Since the beginning of the last decade the Japanese army has been engaged in “peace keeping” missions abroad, mainly on behalf of the United States. Last year, the Abe government passed legislation that allows the Japanese army to participate in wars, invoking the rationale of “collective self defense”. The army will be renamed as the National Defense Force. The United States has permanent military bases in Japan and both countries are bound together by military treaties that were signed after the country's surrender in 1945. The Abe government has further enhanced the already strong military relations by giving more basing rights to the Americans and agreeing to make the United States responsible for the framing of regional policies that will protect Japanese security interests.

President Barack Obama during his recent visit to Japan was full of praise for the US-Japanese alliance claiming that it was responsible for keeping the peace in the region. He conveniently forgot to mention about all the wars the US has fought in the region, including major ones in Korea and Vietnam. President Obama, the Nobel Peace Prize winner also did not think it worthwhile apologising to the Japanese people for the nuclear holocaust in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He was the first US president to visit Hiroshima and many Americans thought that it was an opportune time to say sorry to the Japanese people.

AGAINST

MILITARISATION

Many prominent Japanese have questioned Abe's single minded quest to dump the pacifist constitutions. Emperor Akihito of Japan is among those who seem to be unhappy about the course Japanese politics is taking. The emperor took the unusual step of addressing the Japanese people in the second week of August. It is only on very rare occasions that the emperor addresses his people. His father, Emperor Hirohito had done so to announce Japan's surrender to the Allied powers in 1945. This is the second time the emperor has spoken directly to the people. There has been a lot of speculation in Japan for some time now that the emperor has been wanting to abdicate. The emperor is 82 years old and is a cancer survivor. The emperor indicated in his speech that given the state of his health he found it difficult to cope with his wide ranging duties. Akihito said that ever since he ascended the “Chrysanthemum throne”, he had thought deeply about what is the “desirable role for the emperor, who is designated to be the symbol of the State by the Japanese constitution”.

After the restoration of the Meiji dynasty in 1868, the emperor had played a key role in Japanese history. It was only after the American drafted constitution came into force after the Second World War that the emperor was reduced to the status of “a symbol of State”. The Americans had wanted to use the monarchy to lend credibility to their seven year occupation of the country. Unlike in Germany, the Americans did not entirely purge all those responsible for Japanese militarism and war crimes. Gen. Douglas MacArthur, the American military adviser in Japan who had a big role to play in the drafting of the constitution, had said that the Japanese unlike the Germans were “not a mature race”.

Emperor Hirohito, according to most historians, was supportive of Japan's imperial goals. Emperor Akihito from the beginning of his tenure has however been showing genuine remorse for the humongous atrocities Japan committed during the occupation of the Korean peninsula and China in the first half of the last century. Under Akihito, the Japanese monarchy became more akin to European monarchies, wedded strongly to constitutional democracy.

According to many Japanese commentators, Akihito in his speech was signaling to the Abe government that he was against the overhaul of the current constitution. Abe has indicated that the new constitution which he envisages will change the designation of the emperor's role from “symbol of State” to “head of State”. The draft constitution proposed by the LDP also wants to restore the “semi divine” status that the emperor enjoyed in the past. Under the present constitution, the emperor is obliged to “respect and uphold the constitution”. The Abe government wants to remove this stipulation.

Akihito's speech and his implicit desire to abdicate are being viewed as signs of the imperial household's disillusionment with the Abe's plan to once again militarise Japan. “Reflecting on our past and bearing in mind the feelings of deep remorse over the last war, I earnestly hope that the ravages of war are never repeated”, the emperor had said in a speech to mark the 70th anniversary of Japan's surrender last year. The Crown Prince, Naruhito has been even more forthright in his views. Speaking on the occasion of his birthday last February, the heir apparent to the throne said that at a time when the memories of the world war are fading, it was important “to look back humbly into the past and correctly pass on the tragic experiences and history” to the generation that has “no direct knowledge”. The prince has been repeatedly praising the country's “pacifist constitution” in his speeches.

This could be one reason why Prime Minister Abe is so far reluctant to allow the emperor to step aside, despite the Japanese public's overwhelming support for the emperor's wish to be fulfilled. In a recent opinion poll, 85 percent of the respondents said that they favored the amendment of the Imperial Household Law to permit the emperor to retire. There are many in Japan who hope that the Akihito's unhappiness with the government's proposed move to politicise the role of the emperor and drop the pacifist clause in the constitution, will have an impact on the thinking of Abe government. Even otherwise, the Abe government will first have to consider the emperor's resignation issue before he can go for a radical overhaul of the constitution.