Japan’s relationships with neighboring countries have deteriorated in the past few years as Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro began to pay official visits to the Shinto Yasukuni shrine as soon as he assumed power in 2001. Though no longer state-owned, this special Shinto shrine has never ceased to be the spiritual and political custodian of the continuity of the Japanese empire. Enshrined there as national heroes and Shinto deities are 2.5 million people, most of them military men, who had “dedicated their lives for the Japanese state” since the early Meiji period. Included among the enshrined are also Tojo Hideki and other war leaders of imperial Japan who were tried as class-A war criminals and hanged in 1947 by the Tokyo tribunal’s judgment. Characteristically, civilian victims of wars, like hundreds of thousands of civilians killed in the Battle of Okinawa, the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings, and the Tokyo bombings, are not enshrined there. As TAKAHASHI Tetsuya points out, the shrine is not a place for mourning. It is an institution to honor and glorify the war-dead soldiers, in the name of the state, so as to elevate the sorrows of the bereft into a cathartic glee. The shrine takes a clear political position. It officially refuses to accept the legitimacy of the Tokyo tribunal, considers Japan’s wars as just wars, and treats the imperial Japanese war leaders as martyrs. The Japanese government leaders’ visits to the shrine of this nature therefore constitute a political act and a major diplomatic act, a grave act that demonstrates the rejection of the premises of the postwar Japanese state. Japan was reaccepted by the international community by signing the 1951 San Francisco peace treaty under whose article 11 Japan accepted the judgment of the Tokyo tribunal. All diplomatic relations of postwar Japan have been based on this commitment.

This being the case, China and Korea have a strong ground to protest against Japanese top politicians’ visits to Yasukuni. China is particularly sensitive to the fact that war criminals responsible for the aggression of China, even including MATSUI Iwane, the general held responsible for the Nanjing massacre, are enshrined there. In 1985, then Prime Minister NAKASONE Yasuhiro, known as a rightist politician of theatrical style, paid an official visit to Yasukuni to show off his nationalist identity. But this action invited strong protest from China, Korea and other Asian countries and he had to abandon further visits to the shrine. After 1986, no Japanese prime minister made regular official visits to the shrine until Koizumi resumed the practice in 2001.

The prime minister’s visit to the Shinto shrine has been opposed by many Japanese people too on another ground – violation of the constitutional ban on religious activities by the state. Several lawsuits have been filed to establish the unconstitutionality of Prime Minister’s visits to the shrine. While the state argued for constitutionality of the act, it succeeded in none of the cases. Most of the court rulings positively established the unconstitutionality of the prime minister’s visit to Yasukuni, including one by the Fukuoka district court in April 2004. Asked to react to the Fukuoka verdict, Koizumi simply said he could not understand what the court said at all.

Though it is symbolic of the whole problematic involved, Yasukuni is not the only issue involving the Japanese government’s perception of history. The crisis in the Japan-China and Japan-South Korea relations in April was triggered by the Japanese government’s approval on April 5 of the use of the ultra-rightist-made public junior high school textbooks of history and civics that implicitly and explicitly justify Imperial Japan’s deeds. While the Chinese government lodged strong protest, thousands of Chinese people, many of them young, spontaneously took to the streets of Beijing on April 9 to articulate their protest against the condoned falsification of history by the Japanese government. They went to the Japanese embassy, reportedly threw plastic bottles, eggs, and stones, burning effigies of Koizumi, and otherwise expressed their anger on a whole range of Japan issues from treatment of history to the territorial dispute over the Tiaoyutai (Senkaku) Islands. They demanded that the Japanese government’s approval given the rightist textbooks be withdrawn, opposed Japan’s bid for permanent membership in the United Nations Security Council, protested against Prime Minister Koizumi’s visits to Yasukuni shrine, and advocated boycott of Japanese goods. The major action was organized in Shanghai on April 16 with several tens of thousands directing their action against the Japanese consulate and some Japanese shops. The demonstration was generally non-violent though sporadic vandalization of Japanese restaurants and other Japan-linked edifices was reported. The anti-Japan action spread fast to other cities including Tianjin, Shenyang, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Xiamen, Hong Kong, and Chengdu. It is noted that a climate critical of the direction Japan was heading had been widespread in China before the street action took place. While Japan concentrates its diplomatic activities on the acquisition of permanent membership of the U.N. Security Council, a spontaneous campaign organized through internet had been going on for some time in China against Japan’s bid. By the end of March, more than 20 million Chinese singed a petition opposing Japan’ UN SC permanent membership status.

“Their Problem, not Ours”
Anyone with normal political sense would take this near breakdown of normal relations with China as a serious crisis and would feel that it should be immediately attended and remedied. Economically China has now replaced the United States as Japan’s No. 1 trade partner on whose burgeoning market Japan’s fragile economic recovery heavily depends. Moreover, the Koizumi government’s dream of acquiring the U.N. Security Council permanent membership status is inconceivable without China’s consent.

But strangely the mainstream Japanese politicians and media have acted as though there were nothing really serious about it. Instead of examining whether the neighbors’ demands over the Yasukuni and textbook issues were legitimate or not, media presented the whole development as the problem of Chinese anti-Japan demonstrators having gone berserk, menacing the lives and security of Japanese in China. It was to them not a Japan problem but a China problem. Foreign Minister Machimura Nobutaka, while not even reacting to the Chinese government’s position that Japan was politically responsible for causing this situation, defiantly demanded Chinese apology and compensation for material damage done to the premises of Japanese diplomatic missions and business edifices. In this prevailing discourse, Japan is presented as an innocent victim. Media, especially TV talk shows, have followed the same line, where rightist commentators would accuse the Chinese government of conducting “patriotic education” inculcating anti-Japan sentiments into the youth. Others knowingly comment that the demonstrating Chinese youth are in fact expressing their frustration with the Chinese government using Japan merely as the pretext. Totally absent from the prevailing discourse is serious examination of the legitimacy of the Chinese and other Asian protest over the history issues.

The early April situation must have been a crisis for the Chinese government too as spontaneous action of internet-informed young people crying “patriotism is innocent” could lead to the loss of official control on mass action. While the Chinese government made it clear to Japan that politically Japan was fully responsible for what happened, on the other hand it mobilized media and police forces to prevent any further spontaneous street action. Under heavy security force mobilization all over China, no major anti-Japan action occurred on May 4, the memorial day of the 1919 patriotic manifestation, when observers had anticipated culmination of anti-Japan action.

The demonstrations have subsided for now, but the crisis has not been settled at all. Koizumi himself, attending the Asian-African summit held in Indonesia in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Bandung conference, met with Chinese Premier Wen Jiaboa and President Hu Jintao to “cultivate understanding” and in his public speech on April 22 repeated verbatim the official words of apology his predecessor MURAYAMA Tomiichi made in 1995, but this gesture turned out to be his usual sophistry of calling black white. His repetition of Murayama’s “feelings of deep remorse” and “heartfelt apology” was instrumental only in pre-exonerating what he would later do. Asked at the House Budget Committee on May 16, Koizumi charged China with interfering in Japanese domestic affairs by asking him to stop visiting Yasukuni. In this statement, he made it clear that he would visit the shrine this year again. “Every country wants to mourn their war dead, and other countries should not interfere in the way of mourning,” he said, “I still don’t understand why it’s inexcusable to pay homage and express our gratitude for the war dead as a whole.” On this basis, he declared that he would “make an appropriate decision as to when to make a visit.” This came as an insult to China. The Chinese government expressed displeasure and Chinese vice-premier Wu Yi, visiting Japan to attend the Nagoya Expo, cancelled her scheduled meeting with Koizumi on May 23 as a gesture of protest. Three days later, Morioka Masahiro, an LDP representative serving as parliamentary secretary for health, labor, and welfare, made another provocative statement that class-A war criminals convicted by the Tokyo war crimes tribunal were not criminals as the tribunal was a unilateral trial by the occupation forces that “concocted crimes such as crimes against humanity or crimes against peace.” On this ground Morioka fully supported Koizumi’s visits to Yasukuni. This made China furious. The Chinese Foreign Ministry expressed “strong indignation” at this “outright challenge to international justice as well as the good sense of mankind” which “gravely hurt the feelings of the people who suffered under the brutal invasion of Japanese militarism.” Chief cabinet secretary Hosoda refused to problematize this case as not serious.

Japan’s relations with South Korea are acrimonious because of the Yasukuni, text book, and the territorial issues involving Dokdo (Takeshima) island. Koizumi and President Roh met in Seoul on June 21 but the summit brought the relations to the sourest ever level as Koizumi was adamant on the Yasukuni issue. In the post-summit press conference, Roh used this unusual expression: “We have reached an agreement at a minuscule level with regard to the history issue.”

By early June, however, it appears that some segments of ruling circles are beginning to wake up to see the serious danger of Koizumi-opted collision course with China and South Korea. Specifically Koizumi’s personal bigotry in Yasukuni visits has begun to be seen as a potentially serious problem harming Japan’s national interests. Big business having enormous stakes in the Chinese market is particularly alarmed; this is shown by the critical editorial tone of the Nihon Keizai Shimbun, the daily paper reflecting big business views. In fact, there are some indications of an open rift arising within the ruling groups. Lower House Speaker Kono Yohei, one of the very few doves in the LDP, alarmed by the total failure of Koizumi’s Asia diplomacy, on June 1 invited former prime ministers to advise Koizumi, and they collectively urged Koizumi to display more prudence in handling the Yasukuni issue. The notorious rightist ex-premier Nakasone surprised everyone by independently making a public statement to the same effect, talking proudly about his own “courage of deciding not to visit Yasukuni anymore in 1986.” Interestingly, the Yomiuri Shimbun, the most influential ultra-conservative newspaper, in its June 4 editorial advised Koizumi not to visit Yasukuni and proposed instead the construction of a secular state-run memorial for war-dead, a controversial project it had earlier been very much against. But there is as yet no clear political front of opposition to the Koizumi-Abe hardliner coalition on the Yasukuni issue. As the Asahi Shimbun (May 31) observed, though many intra-LDP critics of Koizumi as well as LDP’s coalition partner Komei Party were worried about Koizumi-provoked conflicts with China and South Korea, they were only grumbling and dared no action to settle the issue.

Though incredibly slowly, the impact of the Asian neighbors’ protest is making itself felt, awakening more people to the severity of the situation as far as the Yasukuni issue is concerned. According to a Kyodo opinion survey on May 27-28, 57.7% of the respondents said Koizumi should not visit Yasukuni this year, up 16.3 from December last year while those favored his Yasukuni visit decreased to 34.3%, down 16.7.

Rightists Take the Lead for the Revision of the Constitution
As for Koizumi himself, he is a lame duck as his term of office is expiring in summer next year. But the political climate he generated is ominous and is likely to stay beyond his time. The danger that I see in the current political climate of Japan, as is typically evinced by the Yasukuni-China/Korea development, is the loss of statesmanship and rational and responsible thinking on the part of the ruling groups of this country. Things appear to be moving on their own momentum in a wrong direction, in a fashion somewhat reminiscent of Japan in the 1930s. In that decade, the ultra-right and military clique manipulated public opinion to justify total aggression of China, Japan’s walkout from the League of Nations, and entry into alliance with Nazi Germany, an adventure that ruthlessly sacrificed neighboring Asian peoples and eventually led to the war with America and the inevitable catastrophe. In such a climate, a “system of irresponsibility” as the late MARUYAMA Masao called the prewar system of rule, sets in where no political body would dare take the ultimate responsibility for the consequence while hardliners blaring out demagogic slogans would get the upper hand over those counseling more considerate approach. As the quality of politics deteriorates in this manner, what results often results by default rather than by design or calculation. I am afraid that some early signs of this symptom are discernible in the Japanese political dynamics of today.

Is this a temporary rightwing swing of the pendulum to be later swung back? I hope it is, but the danger is that the current rightist offensive aims to write their principles into a constitution they are now campaigning to make.

The rightist forces, the LDP mainstream as the core, have placed on their immediate agenda the abolition of the 1946 Constitution and its replacement by a new constitution of their own making. Though euphemistically called “amendment,” what they are proposing is an entirely new constitution that would change the nature of the postwar state. The LDP constitution drafting committee, in its gist of draft announced in April, states that “for the first time in history we are establishing a constitution made by the Japanese nationals and people (kokumin) themselves.”

The forces that promote this statehood-remaking drive is a coalition of composite rightist forces, ranging from storm trooper type, sometimes yakuza-related, ultra-rightist groups through a host of writers, commentators, and scholars, to top-ranking politicians such as Koizumi Junichiro himself and would-be next prime minister Abe Shintaro. The Japanese politics has been taken over by this grand coalition of the right to the same degree that the U.S. politics has been by neo-cons since 911. The Liberal Democratic Party, now dominated by hawkish groups, is of course the prime mover of the constitution-amending drive, but the rightist camp has its influential voices in all strategic positions throughout civil society. Notorious ultra-right politician, Ishihara Shintaro, sits as governor of Tokyo, appearing in TV very frequently, calling China “shina” (China’s derogatory appellation Japanese used before the war), openly insulting women, and agitating against foreigners as potential criminals. The alarming aspect of this is that whatever nasty, xenophobic, and misogynist statements he may make, he is pardoned and stays unpunished. The rightist coalition crosses party lines and finds its articulate promoters in the major opposition party, Democratic Party, as well as media, bureaucracy, education systems, and various other social institutions of influence. The most ominous aspect of Japanese politics since the emergence of the Koizumi administration is that a citadel of consensus, as it were, has been built in the midst of civil society to effectively manipulate and control political discourses by intimidation of dissent. Not that dissenters are arrested because of what they say. But people feel it safe to chime in with the mainstream media opinions or stay silent. In this silence and acquiescence, rightists, marginal for decades in political and intellectual arenas, have moved into the center stage, framing issues their ways for the entire society, and setting criteria of discussion in major political debates. Now rightist political journals such as Seiron and Shokun! occupy the most visible bookstore shelves, while liberal journals such as Sekai are hard to find. In this political climate, changing the postwar constitution is presented as though it were the only choice for Japan.

What kind of statehood then is the rightist coalition seeking to usher in? In order to answer this question, we need to understand what is the postwar state the rightists are set to change because the rightist logic and idiosyncrasies are in response to the peculiar make of the postwar Japanese state. (to be continued)