Japan

[Michaelangelica]

Funny no mention of the Japanese confrontation in the Antarctic re whaling.

But this is reported:-

Aussie book on Crown Princess draws official wrath

By REIJI YOSHIDA
Staff writer

The Foreign Ministry came to the defense of the Imperial family on Tuesday, saying it had lodged formal protests with the author and publisher of a new book about Crown Princess Masako that it called "contemptuous" and "insulting."

The book, "Princess Masako: Prisoner of the Chrysanthemum Throne," contains "unfounded and highly contemptuous descriptions of the appearances, activities and speeches" of the Emperor and Imperial family, a Foreign Ministry statement says.

Ambassador to Australia Hidenao Ueda gave a letter of protest Monday to author Ben Hills and the book's publisher, Random House Australia, Foreign Ministry spokesman Mitsuo Sakaba told a news conference in Tokyo.

"The book insults both Japanese people and Imperial family members," Sakaba said. He gave two examples: He said on page 186 of the book the kimono is described as a symbol of "the old-fashioned subservience of women," and on page 200 Japan's political system is called a "a stunned parody" of Western-style democracy. Hills was not immediately available for comment.

The Crown Princess, diagnosed in July 2004 with an adjustment disorder, has been out of the public eye since December 2003 except for a few rare occasions. The media have reported she is struggling under pressure to give birth to a male successor to the throne

Aussie book on Crown Princess draws official wrath | The Japan Times Online

[Michaelangelica]

A change in Government first since the war!

Still arming Defence Forces?
Have you seen their high tech navy ships?

Still stock-piling resources, like coal from Australia?

[Theory5]

Why would they get upset over calling the japanese government system a stunning parody? I thought the Japanese and Chinese governments structured their political systems after "the west" for some reason I forget atm :-)
They just changed it a bit to allow the governments to still control their people.

Still arming Defence Forces?
Have you seen their high tech navy ships?

Is there anybody who is watching the Japanese to make sure they are honoring the treaty signed after WWII?
I agree they seem to be making a lot more than just defense forces.
I look at china and japan as single entities (respectively of course). Their governments have fingers in everything going on within their borders, and then some.

[GAHD]

Originally Posted by Theory5

Is there anybody who is watching the Japanese to make sure they are honoring the treaty signed after WWII?

Fairly certain in 2008 they changed their national constitution to now allow them to have a standing military.

ASIMO + grenade launchers + children trained in the art of FPS = all the army they'll ever need...

[CraigD]

Originally Posted by Theory5

Is there anybody who is watching the Japanese to make sure they are honoring the treaty signed after WWII?

Technically, what Japan signed 2 September 1945 ending WWII, the Japanese Instrument of Surrender, was a simple unconditional surrender of the Japan’s military to the Allied Powers.

Japan’s formal “renunciation of war” is contained in Article 9 of its 1947 Constitution, which reads (in English translation):

Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes. (2) To accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized

Originally Posted by GAHD

Fairly certain in 2008 they [the Diet of Japan, its national legislature] changed their national constitution to now allow them to have a standing military.

I’m fairly certain they didn’t.

Specifically, such a change would involve the repeal or substantial rewriting of Article 9. According to its Article 96, the Constitution can only be amended by a 2/3 vote in both houses of the Diet, followed by a simple popular majority in a national referendum vote.

What I suspect you’re recalling, GAHD, was a legislative act of April 2007 which established a procedure for holding a national referendum vote, which will take effect in 2010, if itself approved by a majority popular vote. This will put in place the procedural details for amending Article 9, or any other part of the Constitution, for the first time since the constitution was drafted (largely by US military lawyers) and adopted in 1947.

Although the motivation for the 2007 legislation is openly to allow amendment of Article 9 – specifically, the replacement of paragraph (2) to allow for the maintenance of “land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential”, it’s far from likely that such an amendment could garner the necessary votes in the Diet and the voting public, as most polls show a slight majority (55%) of the public opposed to changes to their Constitutional required pacifism.

Ironically, given its role in drafting the Japanese Constitution, the US appears to me to be one of the strongest foreign advocates of the changing of Article 9, in order to enjoy direct Japanese support in the US-led military expeditions in Iraq, Afghanistan, and possibly future expeditions in the greater Mid-East and North Africa – what’s popularly termed “the war or terror”.

Given current Japanese political and popular opinion, I suspect the only way this could occur would be if such military expeditionism could be justified as pre-emptive self-defense – as former US President George W Bush put it, “fighting them over there so we don’t have to fight them at home”. Personally, I believe this is a foolish policy and doctrine, and hope the Japanese people and government don’t adopt it. I fear, however, that a massive terrorist attack on the Japanese people by foreigners – a “Japanese 9/11” – might sway their collective opinion enough for them to change Article 9.