Japan Military Spending in Cross Hairs

Japan will also be able to participate more fully in worldwide peacekeeping, compared with its previous, mostly humanitarian, missions. Japanﾕs ruling party says legislative committee voted security bills as opposition rejects vote. Those opposed outnumber supporters by a wide margin in media polls, and rallies against the bills and Prime Minister Abe himself have swelled into the tens of thousands in recent months, unusually large for Japan. “We urge (him) to step down immediately”. Abe, knowing how hard it would be to revise the top law, pushed the legislation to reinterpret its pacifist clause to permit collective self defense.

Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Eleanor Wang (王珮玲) said that the bills were aimed at expanding Japan’s participation in global security affairs and deepening its security alliance with the United States.

According to AP, as the scrum intensified, ruling party lawmakers still in their seats stood up to signal their support for the military expansion legislations and passed the bills.

He apparently referred to the fact that three opposition parties – the Assembly to Energize Japan, the Party for Future Generations and the New Renaissance Party – voted for the bills.

Japan’s focus on economic growth and democratic reform led to its accomplishments, and the Japanese people know they should uphold peace, development and cooperation.

Anger erupted inside and outside the chamber, with protesters opposing the changes rallying on the streets and on Thursday, heated arguments erupted into a brawl in parliament, with normally sedate lawmakers getting caught up in a shoving match. On Friday, they again chanted for Abe to quit and the government to scrap the bills, while some held placards reading “No War” and “Do Not Destroy Article 9”. Opponents say it violates Japans constitution and puts the country at risk of becoming embroiled in U.S.-led wars.

However, the country’s war-renouncing Constitution bans its Self-Defence Forces (SDF) from doing so or exercising the right to collective self-defence.

The poll was conducted just hours after the Diet enacted the new security laws allowing the Self-Defense Forces to play a bigger role overseas.

Abe has said Japan will not send troops overseas for combat action and will not support a preemptive attack.

Abe was unable to muster support to amend the pacifist constitution and instead opted to “re-interpret” the meaning of self-defense in order to push through the new laws, but the move sparked a groundswell of opposition.

The most heated provision enables the military, for the first time in the postwar era, to come to the defense of allies under attack, though only when the situation is also deemed an imminent, critical threat to Japan.

“As Japan doesn’t have a constitutional court, if the case is brought to the district court it may be rejected initially because there has been no tangible damage to anyone from the legislation itself”, Kato said.