Japan’s ‘Proactive Contribution to Peace’

When Prime Minister Shinzo Abe spoke in front of the U.S. Congress on April 30, 2015, he described the heiwa anzen hosei (peace and security legislation) as “the first of its kind and a sweeping one.” He suggested that, once approved, these laws would allow Japan to improve its capacity to “provide a seamless response for all levels of crisis.” He also said they would make cooperation between the U.S. military and the Japan Self-Defense Forces (SDF) even stronger, which would make the U.S.-Japan alliance stronger, “providing credible deterrence for the peace in the region.”

When Abe’s Cabinet finally submitted the package of actual bills for Diet consideration in May 2015, the issue immediately became one of the most divisive in recent Japanese history. The opposition within Japan – politicians, media, constitutional scholars, celebrities, civic activists, and average voters – strongly stood against the laws from the very beginning, arguing that they would transform Japan into a trigger-happy, war-mongering, aggressively militaristic country. They also did not like the fact that Abe promised the U.S. Congress the bill would pass before his government had even submitted the legislation to the Diet. When a group of well-respected constitutional scholars came out with their view that the laws were unconstitutional, it gave strength to the opposition’s argument that the Abe government is too dangerous to be allowed to have its way in this monumental bill.

On the other hand, the proponents of the bill argued that this legislation is a bare minimum and even overdue for Japan. They also argued that Japan faces an increasingly unpredictable North Korea and assertive China in its immediate neighborhood, and also has a responsibility to respond to a wide range of security challenges that the international community faces. Under these circumstances, the SDF needs a legal framework that is flexible enough to respond appropriately when a situation warrants it while respecting the fundamental principle of civilian control of the military.

The five months of deliberation in the Diet did little to bridge the gap between the two sides. In fact, with the opposition resorting to anachronistic tactics of asking legalistic and nit-picking questions and the ruling coalition failing to ask the kind of questions that facilitate constructive discussion about the reality that Japan faces today, not many people understand what the new security legislation will and will not change.

As most expected, the bill passed the Japanese Diet on September 19. Has anything changed since then? Not exactly.

There is a technical reason for why we have not seen much change. Although the laws were approved by the Diet, they will not go into effect until April 2016. Until then, while the Ministry of Defense will be busy revising all the internal regulations that will be affected by the new laws, the existing legal framework that dictates Japan’s utilization of the SDF will continue to prevail. 

But there is already a sign that suggests we will not see much change in Japan’s security policy choices even after April 2016. Since the security legislation has been approved by the Diet, a number of Japanese legislators across the seniority of the Diet have been visiting Washington. Visitors from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), and its partner Komeito, all have carried a consistent message: Japan will continue to exercise restraint in its use of the SDF overseas. Many of them gave painstaking explanations that, even under the Cabinet decision back in July 2014 that effectively revised the constitutional interpretation to allow Japan to exercise the right of collective self-defense in limited circumstances, the bar to meeting such circumstances is extremely high. To put it simply, Japan will exercise the right of collective self-defense and take action accordingly only when there is a clear link to a threat to Japan’s own security.

In other words, since the security legislation passed the Diet, no political leader in Japan has expressed  a vision for how Japan will use the new laws to boost the role of the SDF under their foreign policy principle of “a proactive contribution to peace based on international cooperation.” In fact, even though Abe launched this vision first in his speech to United Nations (UN) General Assembly in September 2013, the only substantive changes in Japanese policy choices have come in its policy toward countries in the Asia-Pacific region, such as deepening Japan’s security relations with Australia and capacity-building in Southeast Asia. Honestly, these developments are hardly new – some of the initiatives in these two areas, largely in response to China’s growing influence in the region, were well underway when Abe’s predecessor, Yoshihiko Noda, was the prime minister. On other global issues where one might expect change in Japan’s policy given its “proactive contribution to peace” mantra, Japan’s contribution has followed the familiar path of providing financial assistance.

In short, Japan has been talking big for the last two years about a more proactive role that it supposedly is willing to play, but has very little to show for it when it comes to specifics. Given the disengaged reaction to troubles in regions distant from Japan and its neighborhood (recall Abe’s comment about how Japan first has to take care of its own people before accepting refugees), we can expect little change from Japan even after April 2016.

The problem is that, through Abe’s speech to Congress and the new Guidelines for U.S.-Japan Defense Cooperation, Japan managed to hype external expectations, particularly in Washington and among U.S. allies in the Asia-Pacific region, about the changes that the new security legislation will bring to Japan’s behavior. Come April 2016, Tokyo will face a real test as to whether it actually has the will to implement policies that support its “proactive contribution to peace” principles in a tangible way.