As Japan and China continue to exchange angry words over their competing claims to the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, an uninhabited group of islands in the East China Sea, Rupert Wingfield-Hayes finds a growing wave of nationalism in Japan.
The return of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) to power in last Sunday’s election in Japan marks a sea change not only in Japanese, but also in international politics. The nationalism and militarism that pervaded the election campaign signal the determination of the Japanese ruling class to reassert its interests in Asia and globally by every means, including military force.
LDP leader Shinzo Abe, who will be installed next week as prime minister, has already signalled a hard line response in the territorial dispute with Beijing over the islands known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China. Speaking to Japan’s national broadcaster NHK, Abe declared that the Senkakus were part of “Japan’s inherent territory” and warned that “our objective is to stop the challenge” from China.
During the election campaign, the LDP advocated the building of permanent structures on the uninhabited islands—a move that would dramatically worsen relations with China. A tense situation already exists in the East China Sea after the present Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) government “nationalised” the islets in September. Last week, the Japanese military scrambled fighter jets to intercept a Chinese maritime surveillance plane that entered the airspace around the islands.
The governments in both Japan and China have resorted to whipping up nationalism as the global economic crisis has increasingly impacted their economies, fuelling widespread public disaffection and anger over deteriorating living standards. Beijing responded to the “nationalisation” of the Senkakus by giving the green light for anti-Japanese protests that had an openly racist character.
The Japanese economy has now slumped into recession for the fifth time in 15 years. Japanese exports have been hit by the high yen and contracting markets in the US, Europe and China. After two decades of economic stagnation, there is intense frustration in ruling circles over the country’s protracted slide, epitomised last year when China eclipsed Japan as the world’s second largest economy.
In economic as in foreign policy, the new government is determined to reverse the decline at the expense of Japan’s rivals and the Japanese working class. Abe has announced an aggressive monetary policy, similar to that of the US Federal Reserve, to induce inflation and lower the value of the yen—steps that will only compound the emerging international currency wars. The LDP also advocates steep rises in the sales tax to shift the burden of Japan’s massive public debt onto working people.
Abe embodies the aggressive agenda of what he has termed the “new LDP.” He is a scion of the LDP establishment. His maternal grandfather, Nobushuke Kishi, was imprisoned but never charged for war crimes under the US post-war occupation. He later became prime minister and pressed for the abolition of the so-called pacifist clause in the country’s constitution. Like his grandfather, Abe is seeking constitutional change to “normalise” and strengthen the Japanese military and end what he terms the country’s “self-torturing history”—that is, any acknowledgement of Japan’s wartime crimes.
The present situation bears an eerie resemblance to the 1930s. Japan, hit hard by the slump in world trade, plunged into deep economic and political crisis. The desperate militarist regime in Tokyo sought to overcome Japan’s economic malaise through wars for markets and raw materials—invading Manchuria in 1931 and China as a whole in 1937. The military occupation of China greatly exacerbated tensions with US imperialism, which had pursued its own predatory interests in China by demanding an “open door” policy that favoured its position. The competing interests erupted in the Pacific War in 1941.
Japanese militarism was accompanied by the ruthless suppression of the working class at home and the most brutal methods to reinforce its occupation of China, and later South East Asia, as well as its existing colonial rule over Korea and Formosa (Taiwan). Last week marked the 75th anniversary of the notorious Nanjing Massacre in which Japanese occupying troops slaughtered hundreds of thousands of Chinese civilians and soldiers. The attitude that is rife in Japanese ruling circles was openly expressed earlier this year by the former Tokyo governor Shintaro Ishihara, who now heads the right-wing Japan Restoration Party. He baldly denied that the rape of Nanjing ever took place.
The world has, of course, changed dramatically since the US ended the Pacific War in 1945 with the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The US is seeking to maintain its post-war dominance in Asia through President Obama’s so-called pivot to the Asia Pacific. As part of this aggressive campaign to undermine Chinese influence, Obama has encouraged Japan to strengthen its military and take a tougher stance against China—a policy that will only be accelerated under Abe.
The most far-reaching changes have taken place in China’s position in the world. Over the past 30 years, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has junked the economic and social gains of the 1949 revolution, restored capitalist property relations and transformed China into the world’s largest cheap-labour platform. The nationalism promoted by the CCP as the basis for shoring up its rule represents the class interests of an aspiring bourgeoisie, deeply frustrated that its ambitions are being thwarted by the present imperialist order dominated by the US. The CCP denounces Japan’s wartime atrocities only to justify its own drive to end China’s “national humiliation” by the major powers in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and carve out its own sphere of influence.
The working class throughout Asia and internationally confronts great dangers as the deepening global economic crisis reopens the fault lines that led to war in the Pacific. Once again the competing capitalist classes are plunging recklessly towards a new and even more catastrophic conflict.
The only way to prevent this drive to war is to put an end to capitalism and its outmoded division of the world into nation states. Workers in China, Japan and internationally must reject the poison of nationalism and militarism and unify their struggles to abolish the profit system and establish a rationally-planned, world socialist economy. That is the program for which the International Committee of the Fourth International alone fights.
Rising Japanese Militarism. Threat of New War in Asia?
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The protective wing of US has emboldened Japan over the Diaoyu Islands, but it should not test China’s patience too far
Facing the latest strained and complicated developments following Japan’s provocative behaviors on the Diaoyu Islands issue, China should make all possible preparations, including preparations for a possible military conflict and even war.
The resurrection of militarism within Japan is inseparable from the US. To maintain its global hegemonic status since World War II and defeat the erstwhile Soviet Union, the US sought to strengthen and cultivate Japan as an ally.
Washington poses as a neutral, but favors Japan in action, allowing Japanese officials to claim its security treaty with Japan is applicable to the Diaoyu Islands. Such a stance is essentially connivance with Japan’s militarism and aggression and could embolden Tokyo to take more provocative action with dire consequences.
Rising Japanese Militarism
Wang Xiaoxuan
The Diaoyu Islands dispute continues to ferment following the Japanese government’s attempt to “nationalize” the islands and is at risk of spiraling out of control if Tokyo does not chart a new course.
China’s fast development since reform and opening-up in 1978 has also benefited the rest of the world. However, the development dividend they have received has not been appreciated by all beneficiaries: certain countries have never stopped proclaiming there is a “China threat”, and some countries even covet islands or maritime areas belonging to China while enjoying the huge benefits brought about by China’s rapid economic development.
The normal buildup of China’s military, including its navy, is for defense and not based on selfish interests or the pursuit of hegemony. And it should be borne in mind that despite the remarkable progress made in recent years, China’s navy is still unable to meet the international responsibilities and obligations it is expected to undertake as a big international power.
China is a peace-loving nation and the Chinese people are opposed to the use of war to resolve disputes. But such a disposition does not mean we lack the courage to stand up for ourselves. Facing the latest strained and complicated developments following Japan’s provocative behaviors on the Diaoyu Islands issue, China should make all possible preparations, including preparations for a possible military conflict and even war.
With its provocative farce of their so-called purchase of the Diaoyu Islands, the right wing in Japan has exposed its desire to regain “No 1″ status for Japan in East Asia and its unease at China’s steady and sustainable development. The Chinese government and people should be on high alert and resolutely oppose Japan’s militarism.
The Japanese government’s stance on the Diaoyu Islands issue has come amid Japan’s renewed militarism. Under the domination of militarism Japan caused untold pain to and disasters in many Asian countries. And under the umbrella of the United States’ protection, Japan conducts little soul-searching repentance for its past crimes and continuously fanfares right-wing extremism.
The resurrection of militarism within Japan is inseparable from the US. To maintain its global hegemonic status since World War II and defeat the erstwhile Soviet Union, the US sought to strengthen and cultivate Japan as an ally.
Under such strategic consideration, the US signed a security treaty with Japan and privately and illegally handed over the administration of the Diaoyu Islands to Japan, in an attempt to bury the seed for the China-Japan territorial dispute. It is because of this strategic arrangement that the US has turned a blind eye to the rise of Japan’s militarism and its continuous attempts to breach the restraints of its pro-peace constitution.
The US, which is largely responsible for the China-Japan Diaoyu Islands entanglement, should have maintained an impartial stance and sought to help resolve the dispute. Instead, Washington poses as a neutral, but favors Japan in action, allowing Japanese officials to claim its security treaty with Japan is applicable to the Diaoyu Islands. Such a stance is essentially connivance with Japan’s militarism and aggression and could embolden Tokyo to take more provocative action with dire consequences.
The Japanese government should realize the severity of the dispute and immediately refrain from any more provocations and infringements of China’s sovereignty.
From the re-naming of some of the Diaoyu Islands’ affiliated islets earlier this year and the attempt to purchase three of the islands by some Japanese rightist forces to the latest “nationalization” move by the Japanese government, the Japanese government and Japan’s right-wing forces have tried to make fools of the Chinese people.
But while not offending others if we are not offended is the long-cherished principle of China’s dealings with other countries, Japan should not mistake China’s patience and tolerance as an opportunity for pressing for more “concessions”. It should not underrate Chinese people’s courage and resolve to resist foreign aggression. China will not back down an inch on issues related to its sovereignty.
*The author is director of the Naval Research Institute of the People’s Liberation Army.
An armband worn by a member of the Japanese group Zaitokukai. The red characters say “The Volunteer Corps Against Lawless Koreans”; the black characters say “Expel barbarians.
So this week, we’ve discussed the rise of militarism in Japan and its impact on 1930s East Asia. In fact, we used this discussion to lead into the event known as ‘The Rape of Nanking’, the term used for the Japanese invasion of Nanking in 1937. The question for this blog’s discussion is as follows: How are these issues similar to the rise of 1930s militarism? How different are their views toward violence? The reason why these questions are important are clear: study the effects of Japanese militarism on East Asia in the 30s, the invasion of Manchuria in ’31, the invasion of China in 1937, the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. As we progress through World War II, these militarist forces would bring Japan to its darkest days in the modern period, and with some of these crimes, the modern Japanese government has been quick to deny culpability.
New Dissent in Japan Is Loudly Anti-Foreign
By Martin Fackler
Published: August 28, 2010
KYOTO, Japan — The demonstrators appeared one day in December, just as children at an elementary school for ethnic Koreans were cleaning up for lunch. The group of about a dozen Japanese men gathered in front of the school gate, using bullhorns to call the students cockroaches and Korean spies.
Inside, the panicked students and teachers huddled in their classrooms, singing loudly to drown out the insults, as parents and eventually police officers blocked the protesters’ entry.
The December episode was the first in a series of demonstrations at the Kyoto No. 1 Korean Elementary School that shocked conflict-averse Japan, where even political protesters on the radical fringes are expected to avoid embroiling regular citizens, much less children. Responding to public outrage, the police arrested four of the protesters this month on charges of damaging the school’s reputation.
More significantly, the protests also signaled the emergence here of a new type of ultranationalist group. The groups are openly anti-foreign in their message, and unafraid to win attention by holding unruly street demonstrations.
Since first appearing last year, their protests have been directed at not only Japan’s half million ethnic Koreans, but also Chinese and other Asian workers, Christian churchgoers and even Westerners in Halloween costumes. In the latter case, a few dozen angrily shouting demonstrators followed around revelers waving placards that said, “This is not a white country.”
Local news media have dubbed these groups the Net far right, because they are loosely organized via the Internet, and gather together only for demonstrations. At other times, they are a virtual community that maintains its own Web sites to announce the times and places of protests, swap information and post video recordings of their demonstrations.
While these groups remain a small if noisy fringe element here, they have won growing attention as an alarming side effect of Japan’s long economic and political decline. Most of their members appear to be young men, many of whom hold the low-paying part-time or contract jobs that have proliferated in Japan in recent years.
Though some here compare these groups to neo-Nazis, sociologists say that they are different because they lack an aggressive ideology of racial supremacy, and have so far been careful to draw the line at violence. There have been no reports of injuries, or violence beyond pushing and shouting. Rather, the Net right’s main purpose seems to be venting frustration, both about Japan’s diminished stature and in their own personal economic difficulties.
“These are men who feel disenfranchised in their own society,” said Kensuke Suzuki, a sociology professor at Kwansei Gakuin University. “They are looking for someone to blame, and foreigners are the most obvious target.”
They are also different from Japan’s existing ultranationalist groups, which are a common sight even today in Tokyo, wearing paramilitary uniforms and riding around in ominous black trucks with loudspeakers that blare martial music.
This traditional far right, which has roots going back to at least the 1930s rise of militarism in Japan, is now a tacitly accepted part of the conservative political establishment here. Sociologists describe them as serving as a sort of unofficial mechanism for enforcing conformity in postwar Japan, singling out Japanese who were seen as straying too far to the left, or other groups that anger them, such as embassies of countries with whom Japan has territorial disputes.
Members of these old-line rightist groups have been quick to distance themselves from the Net right, which they dismiss as amateurish rabble-rousers.
“These new groups are not patriots but attention-seekers,” said Kunio Suzuki, a senior adviser of the Issuikai, a well-known far-right group with 100 members and a fleet of sound trucks.
But in a sign of changing times here, Mr. Suzuki also admitted that the Net right has grown at a time when traditional ultranationalist groups like his own have been shrinking. Mr. Suzuki said the number of old-style rightists has fallen to about 12,000, one-tenth the size of their 1960s’ peak.
No such estimates exist for the size of the new Net right. However, the largest group appears to be the cumbersomely named Citizens Group That Will Not Forgive Special Privileges for Koreans in Japan, known here by its Japanese abbreviation, the Zaitokukai, which has some 9,000 members.
The Zaitokukai gained notoriety last year when it staged noisy protests at the home and junior high school of a 14-year-old Philippine girl, demanding her deportation after her parents were sent home for overstaying their visas. More recently, the Zaitokukai picketed theaters showing “The Cove,” an American documentary about dolphin hunting here that rightists branded as anti-Japanese.
In interviews, members of the Zaitokukai and other groups blamed foreigners, particularly Koreans and Chinese, for Japan’s growing crime and unemployment, and also for what they called their nation’s lack of respect on the world stage. Many seemed to embrace conspiracy theories taken from the Internet that China or the United States were plotting to undermine Japan.
“Japan has a shrinking pie,” said Masaru Ota, 37, a medical equipment salesman who headed the local chapter of the Zaitokukai in Omiya, a Tokyo suburb. “Should we be sharing it with foreigners at a time when Japanese are suffering?”
While the Zaitokukai has grown rapidly since it was started three and a half years ago with just 25 members, it is still largely run by its founder and president, a 38-year-old tax accountant who goes by the assumed name of Makoto Sakurai. Mr. Sakurai leads the group from his tiny office in Tokyo’s Akihabara electronics district, where he taps out announcements and other postings on his personal computer.
Mr. Sakurai says the group is not racist, and rejected the comparison with neo-Nazis. Instead, he said he had modeled his group after another overseas political movement, the Tea Party in the United States. He said he had studied videos of Tea Party protests, and shared with the Tea Party an angry sense that his nation had gone in the wrong direction because it had fallen into the hands of leftist politicians, liberal media as well as foreigners.
“They have made Japan powerless to stand up to China and Korea,” said Mr. Sakurai, who refused to give his real name.
Mr. Sakurai admitted that the group’s tactics had shocked many Japanese, but said they needed to win attention. He also defended the protests at the Korean school in Kyoto as justified to oppose the school’s use of a nearby public park, which he said rightfully belonged to Japanese children.
Teachers and parents at the school called that a flimsy excuse to vent what amounted to racist rage. They said the protests had left them and their children fearful.
“If Japan doesn’t do something to stop this hate language,” said Park Chung-ha, 43, who heads the school’s mothers association, “where will it lead to next?”
http://mrbpielglobal.edublogs.org/2012/03/07/japanese-militarism-in-the-21st-century/