No need to fear Japan's military

Seoul and Beijing filed protests with Tokyo against the visits by the Japanese cabinet members for honouring some who are accused of war crimes. Among these are Prime Minister General Hideki Tojo, who started the Pacific War, and General Seishiro Itagaki, who masterminded the Mukden Incident of 1931 that launched Japan’s invasion of China.

There are two reasons for South Korea and China to complain about the Yasukuni visits. Seoul and Beijing consider the visits to symbolise Japan’s intransigent refusal to repent for the wrongs it did in the wars, and as a resurgence of Japanese militarism. That is a chronic misunderstanding.

As a matter of fact, Japanese prime ministers have apologised repeatedly for the atrocities the Japanese militarists committed in South Korea, China and elsewhere. Prime Minister Tomiichi Murakami, in particular, apologised three times – once in 1984, together with a lower House resolution on repentance, and twice in 1985. Even ultra-nationalist Junichiro Koizumi, the mentor of Shinzo Abe, offered a public apology for the wars Japan started. But Prime Minister Abe, another ultra-nationalist, has not apologised, though he did not visit Yasukuni Shrine to pay homage in person.

There is a cultural difference. In Shintoism, which was the state religion of pre-war Japan, anybody enshrined is absolved of whatever crime he committed in life. Those honoured at Yasukuni are all kami – spirits and the essence of faith. Among them are 27,863 Taiwanese, one of them an elder brother of former president Lee Teng-hui, who visited Yasukuni a few years ago to pay homage. The Japanese visit Yasukuni to honour their long-dead relatives. It does not have anything to do with militarism, be the visitor a prime minister, a member of the Diet, a general or an admiral, or the man on the street. Any attempt to compel them to stop visiting the shrine may be construed as infringing upon their freedom of faith.

Nor should their presence at Yasukuni be regarded as an omen of Japan’s revival of militarism, which is banned by its 1946 constitution that General Douglas MacArthur imposed during his virtual rule of Japan for five years after the  Second World War. Ultra-nationalists like Koizumi and Abe wish to amend that constitution to make Japan a normal country, not to revive militarism. A normal country, like the US for instance, has the right to declare war on another country. The proud people of Japan want their country to be a normal one. They do not want the constitution imposed on them.

Pre-war Japan was militaristic. Ultra-nationalism gained ascendancy in the chaos of the Great Depression that catapulted the military to dictate the weak government to launch militaristic expansion overseas, creating the Great East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. Most of the prime ministers during the period were generals and admirals. The people attributed the woes the Great Depression brought Japan to negative Western influences, including a weak democratic government. They wanted the traditional Japanese way. The only stabilising force was the military. 

South Korea, China and quite a few other countries are seriously concerned that Abe will revise the peace constitution, the death wish of his maternal grandfather Nobusuke Kishi. To make Japan a normal country, Abe may succeed in removing the article of the constitution that prohibits acts of war by the state, but this does not mean that Japan will rearm itself to start a war of militaristic expansion again. Even with the act of war clause removed from the constitution, there isn’t a one-in-a million chance of the Japanese military gaining enough power to force the democratic government to launch another military expansion overseas.