Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe gestures during a press conference in Buenos Aires, Argentina, November 21, 2016. [Agencies] Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has waited for the right time to show his hand. And the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, by test-firing missiles and threatening to conduct another nuclear test, has given Abe the ruse. Abe has finally unveiled his timetable for giving a newly reborn Japan a new Constitution: 2020. His announcement came on Wednesday when the country observed the 70th anniversary of the Constitution that unequivocally renounces war as a sovereign right of Japan and the threat to use or the use of force as means of settling international disputes. Addressing fellow conservative lawmakers, Abe said Article 9 needs to be amended in order to include a provision to give Japan's current quasi-army, the Self-Defense Forces, a constitutional status. And he claimed it was one of his generation's missions to make the SDF constitutional. Even though the Constitution prohibits Japan from having armed forces, the country built a military in the form of the SDF at the beginning of the Cold War. Abe also intends to introduce an emergency clause to the new Constitution that would give Japanese leaders the authority to respond to large-scale disasters. The Yomiuri Shimbun supports Abe, using the DPRK's recent repeated military provocations and China's self-righteous maritime advances and military buildup as the justification for redefining the SDF. The Asahi Shimbun, however, maintains that Japan could achieve peace and prosperity through the current Constitution, because its fundamental principles, such as sovereignty of the people, respect for human rights and pacifism, have functioned well so far. The Asahi Shimbun also warns that the Constitution now faces its gravest crisis, with the supreme charter being seriously abused under the Abe administration, which has overturned the Japanese government's traditional interpretation of the constitutional law that the right to collective self-defense cannot be exercised without amending the war-renouncing Article 9. Moreover, the Abe administration has railroaded the security legislation through parliament allowing Japan to defend its allies overseas even when it is not under attack. To showcase this breakthrough, the Japanese government, for the first time, sent the country's biggest warship Izumo on May 1 to escort a US Navy's supplier ship to join the US' military campaign to put pressure on the DPRK, without seeking approval of the Japanese parliament. The Japanese media reported that the government had initially planned such a mission for Japanese warships to take part in the Japan-US joint exercises in autumn. The Abe administration's painstaking efforts to hype up the threats from Japan's neighbors seem to have paid off, because the almost anti-militarist movement in Japan has lost momentum, as seen in the public's changing attitude toward constitutional revision. A recent opinion poll conducted by the Mainichi Shimbun showed that some 48 percent of Japanese voters believe the Constitution should be amended, compared with 42 percent supporting constitutional amendment last year. Japan is scheduled to hold elections to the lower house of parliament in December 2018, and the leader of the winning party will become the new prime minister of the country. But no natural rival to the ruling Liberal Democratic Party has emerged until now. The LDP has also changed its rules, allowing its leaders to serve a third consecutive term, which could give Abe, whose second consecutive term as the party's leader will end in September 2018, a better chance of serving as Japan's prime minister beyond 2020. The Japanese Constitution represents the shape of our country, and it should describe Japan's ideal future, Abe told the LDP's annual convention on March 5, making it clear that he aims to unchain Japan from the post-World War II regime. The author is China Daily Tokyo bureau chief. [email protected]personalised silicone wristbands ukrubber braceletslogo wristbandscustom wristbands no minimumcustomise fidget spinnercustom rubber bracelets
TOKYO -- Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike's new party and its allies scored a sweeping victory against Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in Sunday's Tokyo metropolitan assembly election. "We must recognize this as an historic defeat," former defense minister and LDP lawmaker Shigeru Ishiba was quoted by public broadcaster NHK as saying. Forces supporting Koike captured a total of 79 seats out of the 127 seats up for grabs, with Koike's Tomin First no Kai (Tokyoites First party) winning 49 seats, and its major ally in the metropolitan assembly the Komeito party securing 23 seats. Meanwhile, Abe's ruling LDP won only 23 seats, its lowest-ever level in a Tokyo assembly election, according to local media. The LDP has been suffering recently from a plunging public support rate for Abe's cabinet amid two school scandals implicating the prime minister as well as the ruling coalition's unorthodox way of forcing through a controversial legislation at the parliament. Abe has been accused of using his position to make sure that a school operator, chaired by a close friend of Abe's, was selected to open a new veterinary department at a university in a special deregulated zone. He has also been implicated in a scandal involving the school operator Moritomo Gakuen, which reportedly bought a 8,770-square-meter piece of land last June in Toyonaka, Osaka Prefecture, for 134 million yen, equivalent to only 14 percent of its appraisal price, for building a new elementary school with Abe's wife Akie as its honorary principal. The prime minister and his ruling bloc has also drawn staunch criticism from civic groups, lawyers, opposition parties and regular citizens for forcibly enacting the controversial "conspiracy" legislation, which, while criminalizing the planning of serious crimes, could cause serious infringement upon civil liberties, according to critics. A public opinion poll conducted by Kyodo News last month showed that support rate for Abe's cabinet dropped to 44.9 percent, down 10.5 percentage points from a survey a month earlier, with the majority of the people saying they were not convinced by the government's explanations about the scandals implicating the prime minister. A series of scandals involving close allies of Abe's exposed recently made the situation even worse for the LDP, as opposition parties demanded Defense Minister Tomomi Inada be sacked for violating the nation's Self-Defense Forces Law, which strictly prohibits political activities by its personnel, and former education minister Hakubun Shimomura was accused of mishandling political donations. A total of 259 candidates contended for the 127 seats up for grabs in Sunday's election, which has been viewed by many as a barometer of national politics. The LDP backed 60 candidates in the election, while Tomin First no Kai put forward 50. Both the Democratic Party and Komeito fielded 23 candidates each, while the Japanese Communist Party endorsed 37 candidates. Before the election, the LDP held 57 seats at the Tokyo assembly, followed by the Komeito party with 22, the Japanese Communist Party with 17, the Democratic Party with seven and Tomin First six. Koike, Tokyo's first female governor, had been a House of Representatives lawmaker with the ruling LDP before winning the Tokyo gubernatorial election by a large margin last July without the backing of her party. She officially quit the LDP last month and became head of the Tomin First no Kai which was formed last September by Tokyo assembly members supporting Koike. Voter turnout of Sunday's election stood at 51.27 percent, 7.77 percentage points higher than turnout of the previous election in 2013.
