{"id":1389,"date":"2016-03-04T09:39:29","date_gmt":"2016-03-03T23:39:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.griffithasiainsights.com.au\/?p=1278"},"modified":"2016-06-14T12:28:52","modified_gmt":"2016-06-14T02:28:52","slug":"how-bold-is-abes-security-policy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/testblogs.griffith.edu.au\/asiainsights\/how-bold-is-abes-security-policy\/","title":{"rendered":"How bold is Abe’s security policy?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ever since Mr Abe became the prime minister, his plans to reform Japan\u2019s security policy and to include a change of the Constitution have been controversial. But how bold have the prime minister\u2019s plans been? A quick answer to the question is that as a security policy, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has spoken in a bold language but in substance his changes are far more modest than originally proposed and so far implemented. As a question of Japanese constitution and democracy, Abe\u2019s initiative was rather bold, to the extent of possibly having violated some well established constitutional principles and norms, but he has done less than some of his fiercest liberal critics at first feared.<\/p>\n

New security legislation, passed in the national Diet on September 18, 2015, consists of revisions of ten existing laws and the drafting of one new law. They could be categorized into three areas of Japanese security and defense policies: (1) situations threatening Japan\u2019s survival, (2) situations of important influence, and (3) international peace cooperation. Situations which relate to the question of the right to the collective self-defense (1) will be discussed below.<\/p>\n

Categories 2 and 3 involve important changes from the previous typical Japanese self-restraint in the management of the U.S.-Japan alliance (the guidelines of defense cooperation between Japan and the United States), and participation in international peacekeeping operations. In short, it can generally and reasonably be argued that the role of Japanese self-defense forces and Japan\u2019s options in both of these areas are still quite modest from a normal international standard, falling far short of those of Australia, for instance.<\/p>\n

Category 1, pertaining to the most controversial issue, relating to the right to the collective defense, gives rise to somewhat fundamental problems concerning what could be termed the “Abe Agenda.” The new security legislation sets out three revised “conditions for the use of force for self-defense” as follows:<\/p>\n