Assassinated former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe wanted his country to abandon its constitutional renunciation of its right to make war. Election results over the weekend made that much more likely.
When people complained about Japan’s economic triumphalism in the 1980s, Singapore founder Lee Kuan Yew told them to be content. Let the Japanese have the satisfactions of mercantile success because “they were greater warriors than they are merchants. Don’t misjudge them. I do not think they have lost those martial qualities.”
As prime minister, and then afterwards as the leader of the biggest of the five factions in the ruling party, he devoted himself to removing the constraint, to making Japan a “normal nation”. This helps the government to pass its bills, of course, but it also transforms the prospects for a historical revision of Article 9 of the constitution. Any change requires a two-thirds majority of both houses of parliament. Until Sunday, a two-thirds majority in favour of amending Article 9 existed in the lower house only. Today, thanks to the LDP’s Sunday surge, it exists in the upper house also.
Japanese soldiers take part in joint military exercises between the U.S., Japan, France and the United Kingdom in Guam in 2017.The Japanese people have been deeply committed to the country’s pacifist constitution for 75 years. Abe didn’t wait for formal revision of the constitution. He took a series of incremental steps. He increased the budget of Japan’s so-called Self Defence Forces. He broke the longstanding cap that held defence spending below 1 per cent of GDP to today stand at 1.1 per cent. He commissioned the conversion of two warships into aircraft carriers.
Second was the policy goal of a “free and open Indo-Pacific”, now embraced by democracies everywhere as the conceptual framework for their policies and operations.
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