Pacifist Japan gives military a wary embrace

North Korean threat alters war-renouncing attitudes country has held for 70 years

GOTEMBA, JAPAN— The Japanese soldiers jumped out of the jeeps, unloaded the anti-tank missiles and dropped to the ground. Within minutes, they aimed and fired, striking hypothetical targets nearly a kilometre away.

The audience of more than 26,000, crammed into bleachers and picnicking on camouflage-patterned mats, clapped appreciatively, murmuring “Sugoi!” — or “Wow!”— during live-fire drills conducted over the weekend by Japan’s military in the foothills of Mount Fuji.

Pacifism has been a sacred tenet of Japan’s national identity since the end of the Second World War, when the United States pushed to insert a clause renouncing war into the country’s postwar constitution. But there are signs that the public’s devotion to pacifism — and its attitude toward the Japanese military, known as the Self-Defence Forces — have begun to change, in part at the urging of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Abe’s slow, steady efforts to remove pacifist constraints on the military may have gotten help Tuesday, when North Korea fired a ballistic missile that sailed over Japan’s northern island, Hokkaido, prompting the government to issue alerts warning residents in its path to take cover.

It was the first time North Korea had flown a missile over Japanese territory without the pretext of launching a satellite. The missile landed harmlessly in the Pacific Ocean, but Abe called it an “unprecedented, grave and serious threat.”

“We have been living in peace for such a long time that we believe this peace is going to last forever,” said Ichiro Miyazoe, 74, walking in the Ikebukuro neighbourhood of Tokyo after the latest test from Pyongyang on Tuesday. “Japan has had a weak attitude, like a losing dog. We must have a stronger military.”

Although the Japanese public has long been ambivalent about Abe’s agenda — polls show that about half or more disagree with his efforts to revise the pacifist clause of the constitution — its fascination with the military has been growing.

Applications for tickets to attend the Fuji drills were oversubscribed by a factor of nearly 6 to 1 this year. According to polls by the prime min- ister’s cabinet office, the number of those who say they are interested in the Self-Defence Forces has risen to 71 per cent in 2015, up from about 55 per cent in the late 1980s.

Manga comics and anime television shows such as Gate, which feature the Self-Defence Forces fighting against supernatural creatures, have grown popular, while online matchmaking sites offering dates with soldiers have become trendy.

Of course, such activities do not necessarily translate into a desire for a more assertive national defence policy. The most important function of the Self-Defence Forces is disaster relief, and support for the forces soared in the wake of the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, when troops rescued victims and restored disaster-ravaged zones.

But at events like the Fuji live-fire drills, some members of the public are starting to consider the possibility that their military could be called upon to perform more than live exercises or disaster relief.

“Once the U.S. or South Korea engages in a war, Japan will also have to take part,” said Masaaki Ishihara, 60, a manager at a construction company in Yokohama who attended the Sunday drills with his wife, 9-yearold son and a friend. “Japan will be forced to get involved.”

Despite the festival-like atmosphere, with people eating flavoured shaved ice and snapping up T-shirts, model tanks and military-themed cookies at souvenir stands, Ishihara’s wife, Takako, 49, said the exercises felt “like a real battle.”

“I got scared watching it,” Takako Ishihara said. “Will peace really continue?”