Japan's Pacificism as National Identity and a 'Normal' Security Option: Why Japan's Constitutional Peace Clause Is Unlikely to Be Amended
![handle is hein.journals/qland42 and id is 489 raw text is:
JAPAN'S PACIFICISM AS NATIONAL
IDENTITY AND A 'NORMAL' SECURITY
OPTION: WHY JAPAN'S CONSTITUTIONAL
PEACE CLAUSE IS UNLIKELY
TO BE AMENDED
SIMON MILLER*
Japan faces its most serious and complex defence environment since the end of World
War II. The country holds two significant security concerns: first, and critically, China's
burgeoning military, increasingly aggressive diplomacy, and destabilising actions
around the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea; second, North Korea's continued
unpredictable rhetoric and actions in its nuclear arming program and ballistic missile
testing. Japan's 2022 National Security Strategy proposes two unprecedented policy
ideas to counter these threats: first, to significantly increase Japan's defence budget;
second, to acquire counterstrike long-range missile capabilities in response to an
attack. Nonetheless, despite these security issues and policy developments, this article
argues that formal amendment of the peace clause in art 9 of the Japanese
Constitution remains unlikely. To understand the improbability of constitutional
amendment, this article first explores Japan's constitutional pacifism under the post-
World War II Yoshida Doctrine and the United States-Japan cornerstone security
alliance, as well as the context of North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile threat and
the emotive issue of abductions of Japanese citizens. The article then turns to Japan's
historic imperial relationship with China as an avenue to understand contemporary
relations, including the key issues of trade and its link to security, and the Senkaku
Islands sovereignty dispute. It concludes that formal constitutional amendment of the
peace clause remains unlikely in the short to medium term.
I INTRODUCTION
Despite evolving re-interpretation of the peace clause in art 9 of the Japanese
Constitution,1 which is one of the most polarising issues within Japan's political
elites and public debates,2 Japan's pacifism remains key to its internal policy and
Master of International Law (UQ, 2023).
$ M Nihon koku kenpo dai kyu-jo [Constitution of Japan] (3 May 1947) ('Japanese
Constitution').
Yongwook Ryu, 'To Revise or Not to Revise: The Peace Constitution, Pro-Revision Movement,
and Japan's National Identity' (2018) 31(5) The Pacific Review 655, 655.
DOI: 10.38127/uqlj.v42i3.8551](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/qland42&div=28&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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