Ten Years from Security Legislation

Ten years have passed since post-war Japan made a biggest change in its security policy. A series of laws for peace and security was enforced on March 29, 2016, under the leadership of former prime minister Shinzo Abe. The legislature changed interpretation of the Constitution of Japan, enabling Japan to exercise its collective defense right, which had been strictly restrained. Abe insisted that the legislature was necessary for security of Japan. Here is a question: Do the Japanese really feel safe now? 

Article 9 of the constitution renounces war and prohibits the government to possess force, reserving its right to defend itself in the case of directly being attacked. The most controversial point has been about the case in which foreign force with close relationship with Japan is attacked. Past governments have determined that Japan cannot help that foreign force, because it must be an exercise of collective self-defense which the constitution rules out.

 

Facing serious demand of the United States for more active contribution of Japan, Abe changed that interpretation. The 2016 security legislature enabled Japan to use its force to support a country which had a close relationship with Japan. It was limited only in a situation which would affect Japan’s existence as a state. The government of Japan named that situation “survival-threatening situation.” That definition was mainly made by a special team of bureaucrats with Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Defense.

 

Making matters highly complicated, they created a lot of “situations.” Supposing a situation that would not affect security of Japan, if it is left untouched, they also defined “significant influence situation.” In this situation, Japan can make logistic supports to force of a friend force. There is no example so far in which Japan determined one of those two situations written in the 2016 legislature.

 

The government of Japan further assumed a case in which Japan would need to contribute to international efforts for peace. This is “situation of international collective measures for peace.” Japan had been enacting laws for dispatching its self-defense force to peacekeeping operations of the United Nations. It made a permanent law for it in the package of security legislature in 2016.

 

Bureaucrats in Japan is supposed to be smart enough to imagine every predictable situation. However, they failed in predicting a situation in which the U.S. makes military attack on Iran, Iran strikes U.S. military bases in neighbor countries around Persian Gulf, and Iran sets effective blockade in the Strait of Hormuz, where tankers with oil for Japan transit. Abe defined a blockade in the strait could constitute “survival-threatening situation.” But Japanese government dismisses that interpretation so far.

 

Prime Minister, Sanae Takaichi, who admire Abe as her political mentor, does not know what to do to avoid total stop of oil import from the Middle East. An amphibious assault ship of the U.S. Force embarked on from a port in Japan. U.S. Donald Trump administration is reportedly considering seizing Iran’s Kharg Island in Persian Gulf, which means that Japan can be targeted by Iran as an enemy. Takaichi has not announced any measure in this “situation.”

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