Japan Press Weekly

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2014 May 7 - 13 [POLITICS]

Koike calls for utilization of Article 9 on Constitution Day TV special

Japanese Communist Party Vice Chair Koike Akira on May 3 on an NHK special discussion program on the supreme law said that the need now is for Japan to engage in peaceful diplomacy based on Article 9.

Koike said that an opinion poll carried out by NHK in April shows that the percentage of those who think the war renouncing Article 9 needs to be revised stands at 23%, down by 10 percentage points from the previous year, and the percentage of those who think not is 38%, up by 8 percentage points.

As the reason for the increase of respondents opposing the revision of Article 9, the JCP vice chair pointed out that people are becoming increasingly aware of the dangers of policies taken by the Abe government which seeks to turn Japan into a war-fighting nation by legalizing its exercise of the right to collective self-defense.

“Concern over national security is often used as an excuse for constitutional amendment. However, the international community is taking a less permissive attitude toward the use of armed forces in disputes”, Koike said.

He stated that the biggest destabilizing factor in northeast Asia is the Abe Cabinet’s historical interpretation which tries to justify the controversial Yasukuni Shrine and the Japanese military “comfort women” system. The JCP lawmaker stressed that Japan should face the historical facts sincerely and adopt a peaceful diplomacy based on Article 9.

In the same NHK survey, regarding Japan’s exercise of the right to collective self-defense, those who oppose it (41%) exceed those who support it (34%), Koike added.

Given that during the post-war period, successive governments mainly led by the Liberal Democratic Party have never expressed objections to U.S. military actions in other countries, legalization of the right to collective self-defense will lead to Japan’s participation in U.S. wars abroad without limit, Koike warned.