Fewer Japanese Now Back Peace Constitution
TOKYO — One-third of Japanese voters, an 11% increase, favor revision of the nation’s “peace constitution,” a Yomiuri newspaper poll disclosed today.
A bare majority--51%--remain opposed to revision, down six points from the last such poll in 1986.
The opinion survey, published in this morning’s editions of Japan’s largest-circulation newspaper, came eight days after Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu adopted a new interpretation of the constitution to approve the first overseas dispatch of Japanese military forces for an operational mission since the end of World War II.
The poll underlined a marked reduction in popular support for the extreme pacifism that has been a hallmark of postwar Japanese politics. It is expected to add fuel to proponents of change in Japan’s stay-at-home defense policy.
While 82.6% of Japanese voters support the broad outlines of the constitution implemented during the postwar Allied occupation of Japan, one-third--an 11% increase--favor revision, the poll showed. Among those favoring revision, the largest group--45.4%--cited as a reason “because the constitution was forced upon Japan by the United States.”
When asked specifically whether Article 9 renouncing war should be revised to clarify the right of self-defense, 32% said yes. Another 2.9% said the provision should be revised to allow Japan to maintain “full-fledged armed forces.”
Forty-five percent said the nation’s charter no longer matches “international conditions,” while only 38.5% said it does, the Yomiuri reported.
“A delicate change in the people’s sensitivities toward the constitution can be seen,” the Yomiuri commented.
The poll was conducted March 23 and 24--a month before Kaifu approved the dispatch of a convoy of six Maritime Self-Defense Force minesweepers to the Persian Gulf. That precedent-setting move itself drew strong support in four other polls despite Article 9, which had been widely interpreted as forbidding sending troops abroad for any purpose.
Just last week, former Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone, Shin Kanemaru, a ruling party kingmaker, and Michio Watanabe, head of the ruling party’s fourth-largest faction, called for a debate on the constitution.
Moves for reinterpretation of the constitution have gained strength since the Gulf War left Japan standing on the sidelines, contributing $11 billion to the U.S.-led multinational forces but sending no troops or personnel.
A highly placed Japanese diplomat, who asked not to be named, acknowledged that it may take two-thirds of the members of Parliament to revise the constitution, but “only one lawyer is needed to reinterpret it.”
“A reinterpretation can be made as long as most Japanese want it,” he said.
BACKGROUND
Japan at the end of World War II had had enough of war. Militarism had expanded its empire throughout East and Southeast Asia, then brought ruin and atomic devastation. As part of far-reaching reforms, a constitution drafted by Allied occupation authorities and approved by the Japanese Parliament deprived the emperor of his claim to divine right, made Japan a constitutional monarchy, renounced war and forbade military forces for offensive purposes. The language of the 1946 constitution was unequivocal: “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. In order 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.”
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