Comments 4

日本和平宪法的投降

Apr 6, 2016 Emily S. Chen

华盛顿——今年2月，日本首相安倍晋三呼吁国会修改该国放弃以战争为解决争端手段的宪法第九条。安倍表示，上述由美国在二战后起草的宪法包含“某些部分不适合当前时期的需要。”他尤其对禁止日本保有“陆、海及空军力量”的宪法规定表示忧虑，认为它似乎与该国的自卫队存在直接相抵触。

乍看上去，安倍的提案似乎是很不受欢迎的。根据一项民调显示，约有50.3%的日本公众反对修改宪法第九条。仅有37.5%的被调查者赞成这项行动。但对安倍来讲好消息是尽管对他努力的反对非常广泛，但却似乎并不深入。选民们似乎并不太关心安倍晋三正引领国家走向何处，而对他将该问题作为重中之重的决策表示担忧。

修改宪法将为安倍备受争议的防御措施提供更加有力的法律基础。去年推出的新的立法规定解除了对日本海外派兵的限制，并将自卫的定义拓展至包括协助盟友。上述措施同样不受欢迎——至少从表面上看是这样。约51%的日本选民不赞成这项举措，而支持者仅有30%左右。不过，仅有38%的人表示他们希望看到安倍改弦更张并废除这项立法。

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David Olsen Apr 8, 2016

It is cause and effect.

China builds military bases on islands near to most of it's neighbors in the South China Sea, everyone feels threatened by this and starts re-arming. Including Japan.

Only with Japan it has to act now to get its legal ducks in a row so that when it does re-arm for real it all looks proper to the international community.

The Chinese are being extremely short-sighted and foolish by going ahead with this expansion of empire. Time and time and time again the Japanese have shown that they are a compact, opaque, single minded nation that can be easily militarized. Once militarized they can be an extremely ruthless and effective force and they generally start in North China.

Who knows if this fear of Chinese expansion will the catalyst for the development of nuclear weapons within Japan unseen by the rest of the world.

It doesn't have to be this way.

This article reads not so much as a pacifist essay as an oblique criticism of Japan by a woman of Chinese background.

My great uncles fought in the Pacific in WWII (NZ forces), so weren't exactly pro-Japanese. The Japanese had been in China, Taiwan etc for 70 years by that time and were clearly the aggressors.

I do not think that they are the aggressors this time around.

People should be honest about what is going on. The removal of the Pax Americana by the Chinese state will not work out very well for China in the long term.

Being an economic giant does not mean that you are not vulnerable to to an immensely well organised nation with a frightening military record like Japan has had for most of its past.
- Yoshimichi Moriyama Apr 10, 2016
  
  Correction:
  did not making an alliance →　did not mind making an alliance
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- Yoshimichi Moriyama Apr 10, 2016
  
  No doubt the United States will play the key role, as she has been doing, in peace and stability in East Asia.
  
  The front line of the Cold War was in Germany, to be more accurate in West Germany. Fortunately or unfortunately to the West including the U.S., only a quarter of her people was pro-Western, namely they were for friendly ties and did not making an alliance with the West; the remaining three quarters were anti-Western and wished to be independent for an independent security policy.
  The West faced a formidable might of the Red Army and had to enlist West Germany, where the sense of humiliation from the defeated war rather than guilt was prevailing, on its side by all means. The preponderant might of the Red Army gave sobering effects on West German conservatives. Chancellor Konrad Adenauer was anti-Nazi, but he had to make compromises, in view of strong German national pride, because former Nazis and sympathizers with Nazi occupied important places in West Germany's military and indurstial circles, and the West and the United States too could not afford to purge West Germany of Nazi sympathizers, and ask whether the Germans repented or not.
  
  This is a long story. The Roosevelt administration began to feel from around the summer of 1941 that Japan might fire the first shot. Secretary of State Hull handed a note, known as the Hull Note to the two Japanese ambassadors on Nov. 26, knowing that Japan would probably start war. Japan decided to go to war on Dec. 1 (Japan Standard Time) and struck Pearl Harbor on Dec. 8. I would like you to read my comment on Robert Shiller/Is Russian's National Character Authoritarian?/March 17/the Project-Syndicate org.
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Yoshimichi Moriyama Apr 8, 2016

No matter what Japan does, people view it through the lens of extremes (Prof. Jennifer Lind of Dartmouth College, the Council on Foreign Relations, online).

I cannot say exactly when, so I will say like "about 1990" or "around 1990." China and South Korea did not say at least until around 1990 or a little before 1990 that the (West) Germans were repentant and apologized sincerely while the Japanese were not and did not apologize. It was not Germans nor Frenchmen nor British nor any other Western people that started the international chorus of German repentance and Japanese non-repentance. It was as usual the Japanese lefts that started it and it was as usual the Chinese and the South Koreans that propagated it internationally in a loud jarring voice.
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Aya Tokura Apr 7, 2016

This article focused on pacifist article 9, but the world should pay more attention on all other parts of the revised draft. The aim of the ruling party led by Abe is not only to abandon pacifism in current constitution, but also to restore totalitarian state (like pre-WW2) by limiting the democratic rights of individual . More than 80% of cabinet ministers (including Abe) belong to "Japan Conference (Nihon Kaigi)", an ultra right wing political lobby , which supports to achieve this goal. For details, please refer to:
http://apjjf.org/2013/11/28/Lawrence-Repeta/3969/article.html
http://tokuraaya3.blogspot.in/2016/02/japan-pms-stealth-constitution-plan.html
http://tokuraaya3.blogspot.in/2016/02/lifting-lid-on-one-of-most-influential.html
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David Morgan Apr 6, 2016

Japan unlike Germany has been very reluctant to address the activities and horrors perpetrated against neighbouring countries by its armed forces in World War Two. They are reluctant to admit what happened let alone apologise properly. I will not go on to comment on changed history books. So any changes to the Japanese constitution is a very sensitive issue in Asia where most of the horrors and atrocities took place. Thankfully not too many people are still alive to remember those horrors, however, the history books in those countries occupied by the Japanese are as accurate as they can be and tell current and future generations what really happened. Nanjing Museum is a case in point.
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日本和平宪法的投降

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