Japan Press Weekly

Tweet

2015 June 17 - 23 [POLITICS]

Draft system may follow war legislation

Concern is increasing among the general public that Japan may again adopt military conscription if the government-proposed security legislation is enacted.

There is data showing that the number of those who join the Japanese Self-Defense Forces declines when the SDF is dispatched overseas.

The National Defense Academy in Kanagawa’s Yokosuka City is a facility for the training of SDF officer candidates. Graduates of the institution usually become SDF officers.

The rate of academy graduates who refused to join the forces was 5.3% in fiscal 2014. This figure is nearly five times more than 1.1% in fiscal 2011. In July 2014, Prime Minister Abe Shinzo’s Cabinet approved a decision enabling the country to exercise the right to collective self-defense by arbitrarily changing the past governments’ interpretation of the pacifist Constitution.

The rate was also hovering at a high level in the 2000s when SDF troops were sent to Iraq and the Indian Ocean.

Another piece of data published by the Defense Ministry indicates that the total number of SDF members decreased by over 20,000 from 247,191 in 1988 to 225,712 in 2013. In 1991, the government began to dispatch SDF troops abroad.

The Abe administration reiterates that its security legislation will not lead to a draft system. Some key persons in the government and the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, however, express views different from Abe’s claim.

Ishiba Shigeru, Minister in charge of Vitalizing Local Economy, has often stated that enforcing conscription does not constitute “involuntary servitude” which is prohibited by the Constitution.

Funada Hajime, head of the LDP Headquarters for the Promotion of Revision to the Constitution, said on a TV program in July 2014 that it is “theoretically possible” to consider a draft system as constitutional.

To prevent young people from being drafted, the need now is to kill the war-related bills.

Past related articles:
> 54 SDF members commit suicide after returning from abroad [May 28, 2015]
> SDF desperately trying to recruit high school students [December 23, 2014]