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The Japanese Right Wing [1]
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Date: 2022-07-11
(On July 10, the late Shinzo Abe’s conservative party won a supermajority in elections to the Japanese Diet.)
I read this on a MAGA comment board: “I support Putin because he opposes the liberal international order.”
Apparently, s(he) thinks Putin is talking about Nancy Pelosi. I went to college so I know that when Putin says “liberal order”, he means the Reagan-Bush orthodox foundation of U.S. global hegemony that brought down the Soviet Union. But I’m not going to mock the MAGAbot just because s(h)e doesn’t have my book schooling.
I’m not as casual about the same level of reflexive unsophistication on the Left, because we can’t afford it. In the days after the assassination of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the meme “Abe was arch-conservative!” ran wild on the Left. Yes, Abe was a conservative — on the Japanese political spectrum, not the American spectrum. Democracy Now! interviewed Japanese left-wing Professor Nakano in a segment entitled “Will Abe’s Death Drive Japan to the Right?”
It seems to me that an American journalist interviewing a Japanese journalist should clarify what exactly ‘Right Wing’ means in Japan as opposed to the U.S. I wouldn’t assume “right wing” means the same in a different country, anymore than I think Nancy Pelosi is the architect of the “liberal international order.”
What does the Japanese Right Wing look like?
The Right Wing Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has dominated Japanese government since 1955. In 1961, the ruling Conservative party implemented Universal Healthcare. That’s 50 years before our Obamacare crumbcake. Public option, medical price controls - that is Right Wing social policy in Japan.
We can’t even get our Democratic Party to support Medicare for All. So on healthcare, the Japanese Right is to the Left of Nancy Pelosi and doesn’t even inhabit the same universe as our American Right.
On nuclear weapons: The Right Wing LDP is light years to the Left of even the Far Left wing of our Democratic Party. The LDP adheres to unilateral abstention on nuclear weapons. As the most powerful politician on the American Left, has Bernie Sanders called for U.S. unilateral nuclear disarmament?
No. Sanders calls for a ‘Nuclear Free World.’ Ronald Reagan dreamt of a ‘Nuclear Free World’ 40 years ago. To make the dream come true, should the U.S. take the first step by dismantling our arsenal first? Sanders doesn’t say that. He says ‘No U.S. First Strike’ to applause. But when asked if he would retaliate against a nuclear first strike on the U.S., Sanders ducked. “It’s an immoral question!” Yes, it’s an immoral, ghastly question. It’s also a hard question Sanders might face as Commander-in-Chief. Sanders refused to answer. Why not, does he think it could never happen? Without the deterrent of Mutually Assured Destruction, Sanders believes Russia or China would never launch a first strike because …? Free of MAD, the U.S. used atomic weapons but Russia and China would never because they’re nice?
Of course, Sanders doesn’t believe anything that silly. He was just ducking the question, as politicians duck tough questions, because he was running from the far left in the Democratic primary. But the Japanese Right Wing does not duck the question: Japan will not acquire nuclear weapons.
Even in the face of nuclear bluster from China, with North Korea shooting missiles over Japan? Japan will not acquire nuclear weapons.
We can’t even dream of passing the gun control policy of Japan’s Right Wing.
The American Left has got a nerve calling Abe an ‘arch-conservative!’ when Abe has left our Left in the dust, both in practice and in principle, on healthcare, nuclear weapons, and gun control.
But Article 9?
I was disappointed that Democracy Now! didn’t ask Professor Nakano about the connection between Article 9 and Indo-Pacific Security alliances like the Quad, Vietnam-Japan security partnership, as well as the U.S.-Japan Security Pact. That seems to be the issue, not “Abe is moving to the Right!”
Abe’s reinterpretation of Article 9 is by no means a simple legal issue—because of these Defense Treaties. Is the idea that India will come to Japan’s defense if Japan is attacked, but Japan can’t come to India’s defense if India is attacked?
In any event, Japan does have a Supreme Court. The Japanese Left has not so far managed to overturn Abe’s Reinterpretation in court. Lower courts have dismissed lawsuits without deciding the Constitutional question. It appears that willful Judicial Limbo will leave the Reinterpretation in effect. But what’s the argument — that Article 9 commands the military only be used in self-defense, yet bars Japan from adequately defending itself against the much larger forces of China by forming Collective Defense pacts?
That’s not an “Originalist’ argument. The Original Drafters of Article 9 were the U.S. occupation force, supremely empowered by the explicit threat of total atomic destruction of Japan. As the ‘Founding Father’ of postwar Japan, General MacCarthur designed the Constitution to implement Regime Change in the service of U.S. hegemony. As U.S. hegemony is the foundational principle of the Japanese Constitution, it is not serious to argue that the Reinterpretation violates MacArthur’s Original Intent.
However, I don’t know if ‘Originalism’ is even a thing in Japanese jurisprudence.
Note that Article 9 does not ban Japan from acquiring nuclear weapons, certainly not explicitly. And the Japanese Supreme Court has never ruled so. Japan’s Three Non-Nuclear Principles are Right Wing LDP Policy. So if Article 9 bars Japan from collective defense, Japan’s only other choice in the face of China’s numerical force advantage would be to acquire nuclear weapons to defend itself ‘individually.’ Abe preferred the Quad. Does the Left prefer the nuclear option?
Or is the argument that Article 9 requires Japan to surrender to China? Please tell me that’s not the position of the American Left going into 2024.
So why should we presume Abe is the bad guy because he wants to amend Japan’s Constitution? We want to amend our Constitution, which was not drafted by a foreign occupier. Article 9 is so far to the Left of the U.S. Constitution — there seems to be quite a bit of room for amendment before it ever legalizes the Neocon Psycho Policies that our Constitution allows.
Is General MacArthur’s Divine Will sacrosanct? Is the hydrogen bomb the Word of God? It couldn’t possibly be a genuine bug for Prime Minister Abe that the Japanese Constitution was dictated by a foreign power at atomic spearpoint?
Does the American Left support nuclear coercion? Does the Left oppose nuclear coercion? There doesn’t seem to be a lot of thought going on, just a reflexive reaction to the ‘Right Wing’ label.
There’s some noise about Abe doing photo ops with Trump. Did we expect the Prime Minister to sacrifice his nation’s security and cancel the U.S.-Japan Security Pact because Trump is a giant jackass? Is it not Abe’s fault that we let that freak become President!
Anyway, Abe’s pursuit of Collective Defense is the opposite of Trump urinating on NATO. No, Abe was not a Japanese version of MAGA.
Yasukuni Shrine. I wouldn’t touch these sensitive diplomatic matters between Japan, Korea, China, and Vietnam. But there are two aspects. One is the debate over reparations, remembrances, and the adequacy of formal Statements of Remorse by three Japanese Prime Ministers, including Abe.
The second aspect is China’s strategy to leverage Japan’s atrocious past as propaganda against current Japanese security policies. We can call it the ‘Tojo Card.’ Not unlike the ’Hitler Card’ we should be very familiar with in U.S. politics. When Shinzo Abe warned China’s President Xi personally not to invade Taiwan, China responded by accusing Japan of reverting to Imperial Genocidal Militarism.
This is the same as Israel’s Netanyahu playing the ‘Holocaust Card.’ BDS Movement? You’re Hitler! Iran Nuclear Deal? Obama is Hitler! Japan objects to North Korea firing missiles through Japanese airspace — Tojo Rides Again!
Tojo Rides Again? That’s silly. Japan’s Right Wing LDP has not started any war — ever. is this because of the magical powers of Article 9? We have a Constitution too. It says only Congress can declare war. Our Constitution didn’t stop the undeclared Vietnam war. On military matters, our government says ‘bleep the Constitution’ whenever it wants. How does Article 9 stop the politically dominant LDP from deploying 180,000 “advisors” in Syria, or invading Malaysia and calling it a “Special Humanitarian Operation?”
It is immature to believe Article 9 on paper could constrain a Neocon Aggressor Party with a lock on the majority. The LDP has never started a war because it is Anti-War, following what Prime Minister Abe says in his 70th Anniversary Statement:
“We must never again repeat the devastation of war.
Incident, aggression, war -- we shall never again resort to any form of the threat or use of force as a means of settling international disputes.”
This is not some flowery speech from Barack Obama in between drone strikes. Japan’s Right Wing LDP has never killed a single human being with military force.
I’m embarrassed that the American Anti-War Left, which has not stopped U.S. aggression, would lecture the Japanese Anti-War Right. We need to learn from them. They don’t need to learn from us. In Practice, Abe’s Right Wing has far outperformed the American Anti-War Left. In Principle, the LDP puts our Democratic Party to shame. It is just plain absurd to equate LDP with our Right Wing Neocon Republican Party.
Frankly, I wouldn’t bother to interview Professor Nakano. If I ran into a Japanese Leftist in a coffee shop, I might ask, out of curiosity, “What do you do with yourself in Japan? What do you run on?”
They can’t run on healthcare because the Japanese Right provides Universal Healthcare. They can’t run on nuclear weapons because the Right opposes nuclear weapons. They can’t run against the war because there isn’t any war. Well, I’m sure a Japanese Leftist could answer my question. But only out of curiosity. The Japanese Left can afford the luxury of political irrelevance. They can afford to lose landslide elections to their Anti-War Social Democrat LDP for 70 years. We can’t afford to lose one election! So I wouldn’t seek out Nakano’s opinions.
No, I’d interview an LDP. The Right Wing LDP has implemented what Democracy Now! only stands for. How did you pass Universal Healthcare? How did you go through the Cold War and the War On Terror without starting any wars? How do you keep your Neocon Crazies on the margins?
Or I would interview Vietnamese Prime Minister Phạm Minh Chính. With perpective on the vicious occupation of Vietnam by Imperial Japan, today Vietnam enters into Security Partnership with the Japanese LDP to jointly deter territorial aggression by China. How I love that image of Prime Minister Kishida bowing to the flag of the blessedly great nation of Vietnam.
If I did have 10 seconds of Prime Minister Chính’s time, I wouldn’t ask him about Shinzo Abe’s grandfather. The Prime Minister would wave me away as an idiotic talking pigeon.
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