On my way back to Japan, I began reading Protest in Tokyo, a classic account of the crisis surrounding the approval of the 1960 revision of the US-Japan Mutual Security Treaty by George Packard, president of the United States-Japan Foundation.As Prime Minister Abe forges ahead in his campaign to abandon the postwar regime, I think …
Continue reading Reading Packard on the US-Japan Mutual Security Treaty
Western commentators who only intermittently pay attention to Japan seem to be befuddled by the Japanese constitution. They seem to have a hard time grasping the difficulties associated with changing it, the totemic significance it has been made to bear by both pacifists and revisionists — and thus tend to assume that revision is easy, …
In questioning the Associated Press's use of the term "nationalist" to describe Prime Minister Abe, Ampontan, in this post, asks, "What is it they mean by calling Mr. Abe a 'nationalist'? And because they so frequently insist on using that term to describe him, they must think he demonstrates more of those characteristics than other …
Prime Minister Abe and DPJ President Ozawa had their long-anticipated head-to-head debate yesterday, reportedly the longest length of time ever in a Diet session without a direct clash between party leaders.That according to a handy table provided in the print edition of the Asahi Shimbun, which indicates that the previous record was in 2002, when …
Earlier this week I noted that Condi Rice had told Japan that the resolution of the abductions issue was no longer an obstacle to the removal of North Korea from the US State Department's list of state sponsors of terrorism.Indicating just how serious this issue is to Tokyo, Yomiuri (article not online) reported yesterday that …
The Upper House of the Diet passed the national referendum bill this afternoon. In accordance with the bill's provisions, there will be a three-year moratorium on constitution amendments — meaning Japan has until 2011 to have a thorough debate on whether and how to revise the constitution. With luck Japan will have a new, slightly …
The Asahi Shimbun's English edition printed a story today suggesting that US Secretary of State Rice told Japanese officials last month that resolving the abductions issue is not a precondition for the removal of North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism.In previous posts such as this one, I suggested that Japan seems …
Ozawa Ichiro, DPJ president, laid into the prime minister on TV Asahi this morning, emphasizing that he disagrees not just with the prime minister's position on constitution revision, but with the prime minister's philosophy root and branch.I'm with Ozawa on this one (and not because I work for a member of his party).Back in January, …
Well, it was only a matter of time. First, Defense Minister Kyuma signalled in Washington that Japan was approaching a reconsideration of its restrictions on arms exports, prompting Chief Cabinet Secretary Shiozaki to deny that any change was impending and reaffirm the principles. Then, Abe voiced a slightly more ambiguous position, resting somewhere between Kyuma …
Yesterday I noted that Chief Cabinet Secretary Shiozaki reaffirmed the government's commitment to the three arms export principles, saying that the three principles are "an extremely important policy."It seems, however, that Abe is leaning more towards Kyuma's position than Shiozaki's, as he said at a press conference at the Kantei yesterday, "It has been decided …
Tobias S. Harris 