The future of Japanese pacifism is at stake.
Japan’s government has just announced plans for a snap election ostensibly about the country’s economic policy. The true stakes, however, are far higher: There is a real possibility that this election will erode Japan’s post-World War II commitment to pacifism — and see a US ally in one of the most unstable parts of the world build up its military.
The country wasn’t supposed to have another parliamentary election until 2018. But on Monday, the center-right Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced that elections would be held early, on October 22 — less than a month from now.
This kind of surprise election might seem weird to Americans, who are used to campaign seasons that span the course of years, rather than weeks. But it’s something that happens with some frequency in both Japan and other parliamentary democracies like Great Britain, where prime ministers are empowered to call a new election if they believe it to be in the nation’s interest (or in their own).
In this case of Japan, experts say Abe’s decision is less about what’s best for the country and more about what he thinks is best for him. For the past few months, Abe has been suffering in the polls due to corruption scandals, but the dismissal of some allegedly corrupt cabinet members in early August — paired with public support for his aggressive response to the North Korea crisis — appear to have pushed those numbers back up. Abe likely believes that those polls will take a downward turn as time goes on, making it smart to call a vote now rather than waiting till the regularly scheduled election next year
The consequences could be huge. Abe, a nationalist by Japanese standards, has long been pushing for Japan to build up its military and prepare to use force well beyond its borders if necessary. That mean amending Japan’s post-World War II constitution, which commits the country to a pacifist foreign policy. A large enough victory in this election would allow Abe to push through some version of “constitutional revision,” as it’s called — putting the country down the road to remilitarization.
“Abe will try to push for constitutional revision while he still can,” Daniel Smith, a political scientist at Harvard who studies Japanese politics, tells me. “If he does poorly, it’s probably back off the table.”
The impact would resonate far outside Japan’s borders. China, in particular, has long been deeply concerned about the prospect of a fully militarized Japan — and would see any move toward it as a threat to its security. Managing the resulting tensions would be a major challenge for American diplomacy in the region — and it’s not clear if the Trump administration would be up to the task.
So while this election may be motivated by simple political self-interest, it could end up having major long-term consequences for a vital part of the world. Here’s what you need to know to understand the upcoming vote.
Earlier this year, Abe was in trouble. Two corruption scandals, implicating both his wife and several members of his parliament, had tanked his historically high approval rating. On August 1,60 percent of Japanese voters disapproved of Abe’s performance while a scant 32 percent approved, according to an average of Japanese polls complied by the Sasakawa Peace Foundation.
Since then, though, his numbers have gone up substantially — as you can see on the below chart of Sasakawa’s average:
This has happened for three reasons, which together explain why Abe is calling the election now.
First, he fired a number of cabinet ministers in August, including unpopular Defense Minister Tomomi Inada. This sent a message that Abe was taking the scandals seriously.
Second, US-North Korea tensions exploded — leading to, among other things, Pyongyang firing a missile over Japan for the first time in over a decade. Abe has a long track record of handling issues with the North; he actually traveled to Pyongyang in 2002 to participate in negotiations with Pyongyang and so is trusted by the Japanese public to handle the issue.
The more threatening North Korea becomes, the more Abe’s generally hawkish worldview — including his move toward militarization — makes sense to Japanese voters. As long as the issue is dominating headlines, Abe has an advantage.
Third and finally, the opposition is in a delicate position.
Abe’s center-right Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), historically dominant in Japanese politics, is facing a rebellion led by Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike, who split off to form her own faction. Koike’s group did fairly well in local elections in the Tokyo area in July, but needs time to get ready to stand for a national election. Calling a new election now reduces her time to organize and coordinate effectively with the main opposition party, the center-left Democrats, in essence lessening the threat she poses to Abe.
Put those things together and you get a kind of perfect storm of circumstances that temporarily buoy Abe’s political fortunes — which is why he may think it makes sense to have a vote now rather than waiting till year.
Abe obviously does not want to admit that this new election is purely political. So the public line from Abe and the LDP is that the new election has been called to get the public’s backing for a new set of tax and social welfare policies.
Japan is about to hike its consumption tax rate from 8 to 10 percent; the current plan is to spend the new revenue on paying down the national debt. Abe wants to redirect that money toward tuition funding for low-income college students and a new government provided child care service for kids ages 3 to 5.
This pitch underscores how different the Japanese political spectrum is from the American one. Abe, who’s promising to use a tax hike to pay for social services, is the conservative in the race. This is not an election with huge ideological stakes, at least in the way that it’s understood in the US, so much as a referendum on Abe’s performance on issues like North Korea.
“[Voters] aren’t going to be thinking about the opposition, in my opinion, because it’s in such disarray,” says Amy Catalinac, a professor at New York University who studies Japanese politics.
This makes the election sound inconsequential, especially compared to dramatic elections in several Western democracies. But the stakes are anything but low: In fact, the foundation of Japan’s foreign policy may well be on the line.
Japan’s constitution was written right after the country’s crushing defeat in World War II with that war’s horrific consequences in mind. It is almost unique among constitutions in essentially prohibiting Japan from having official armed forces. The text of Article IX, the provision enacting this prohibition, is especially strong:
Yet in the years following the war, Japan faced a series of major security threats — most notably from China and North Korea. As a result, it started to build up its military capacities in 1954, calling the new branch “Self-Defense Forces” (SDF) to avoid constitutional problems. Today, Japan has the world’s eighth-largest defense budget; the SDF has more active-duty troops (227,000) than the French military (203,000).
This is a little bit difficult to square with Article 9’s prohibition on “land, sea, and air forces.” The country tries in various ways — by swearing off certain military technologies, like ground-to-ground missiles, that it deems “offensive” rather than “defensive” — but it’s a tough line to toe.
Abe wants to end the balancing act entirely. In a May 2017 speech, he promised to amend Article 9 to explicitly recognize the constitutionality of the SDF by 2020. A 2012 draft amendment written by the LDP went further, actively repealing the part of Article 9 that banned Japan from maintaining “ war potential.” Experts on Japanese politics believe that Abe’s heart lies with the more radical proposals, rather than his more measured speech this year.
