Threat shakes commitment to pacifism
GOTEMBA, Japan — The Japanese soldiers jumped out of the jeeps, unloaded the antitank missiles and dropped to the ground. Within minutes, they aimed and fired, striking hypothetical targets nearly a half-mile away.
The audience of more than 26,000, crammed into bleachers and picnicking on camouflagepatterned mats on the ground, clapped appreciatively, murmuring,
“Sugoi!” — or “Wow!” — during live-fire drills conducted over the weekend by Japan’s military here in the foothills of Mount Fuji.
Pacifism has been a sacred tenet of Japan’s national identity since the end of World War II, 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-Defense 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. 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 neighborhood of Tokyo. “Japan has had a weak attitude, like a losing dog. We must have a stronger military.”
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. “Japan will be forced to get involved.”
Analysts said the public has yet to reckon with just how far it is willing to go in the name of national security.
“I think that ordinary people tacitly want to avoid thinking about a potential contradiction between the notion of the pacifist clause of the constitution and the reality of changes in Japanese defense policies,” said Jiro Yamaguchi, a professor of political science at Hosei University.