(Prohibited by\nintellectual property law or in any way unlawful use\/appropriation of this\narticle, with heavy civil and criminal penalties for the offender.)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The objectives of the Constitutional review<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The main body of the Constitutional review which Mr. Abe will try to change\nconcerns the new role that the armed forces of Japan will take (Japan’s\nSelf-Defense Forces). The issues of the electoral districts of the upper house,\nthe issues relating to the emergency powers of the Council of Ministers as well\nas the right of citizens to free education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But changing the country’s Constitution is a very difficult task since the\nLiberal Democratic Party (LDP) led by Mr. Abe, requires the support of\ntwo-thirds votes of both the House of Councilors (Upper House) and the House of\nRepresentatives (Lower House). In addition to all this, there is a need for a\nmajority in a referendum on these issues. But the problem is that Mr. Abe lost\nthe allied majority which he has in the Upper House in elections that took\nplace in July.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Essentially, the loss of two-thirds in the upper house forces the Prime\nMinister of Japan to change his strategic approach to the whole matter. Only a\nsincere debate with the other political parties in the upper and lower house on\nthe reasons for changing all these issues in the Japanese Constitution will\nhave a successful conclusion on the objectives of Mr. Abe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Above all, however, the Japanese people will have to be presented with what the new role of the Japanese Armed Forces will mark for the rest of the world and for Japan itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Japan’s role and economic growth after the World War II<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Japan after the end of the WWII and throughout the Cold War functioned\nunder the US military umbrella as well as the whole of Western Europe. This\nmilitary security umbrella for Japan was achieved through the Security treaty signed between the US and\nJapan (1959) which ensured the defence of Japan by external invaders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For the US, Japan as well as Western Europe with prominent Western Germany\nwas a vital objective to flourish economically. Japan, having been fully\nintegrated into the US economic system, was parallel (together with South\nKorea) and the advanced outpost\/bases of the US Army in north-east Asia. In\nother words, Japan’s economic rise would function as a mound for the economic,\nmilitary and political rise of China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The economic rise of Japan was achieved in the\n1960 and lasted until the end of the 1980 and was due to innovation and above\nall to the diligence and self-discipline of the proud Japanese people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Challenges and opportunities today for Japan<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n In today’s era and thirty years after the end of\nthe Cold War and the collapse of the USSR, the challenges and opportunities\npresented at the world stage for Japan are many and different.<\/p>\n\n\n\n From the WWII, and to this day, the Japanese\npeople are proud of their unparalleled appeal to peace, necessarily changing\nthe field of action (from the military field before the WWII, the possessions\nof Imperial Japan made the Japanese proud) in economic and industrial sector by\nachieving Japan’s economic marvel by making the Japanese economy the world’s\nthird largest economy (or fourth after the EU).<\/p>\n\n\n\n The change in article 9 of the Constitution,\nwhich defines both the size and maintenance costs of the Japanese Armed Forces,\nreleasing them from any imposed restrictions existed to date, having exclusive\nthe defensive mission which was related solely in defending the country will\nchange the challenges to date in force for Japan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This type of change will mark the world\ncommunity that it is time for Japan to reflect its economic power to date and\nin the military sector. In this case, the Japanese defence industry will be\nable to develop drastically because of the public spending that will\nincreasingly absorb technological development and the equipment of the new\nJapanese Armed Forces, causing a rapid increase its GDP to be combined with\nincreased exports of Japanese weapons systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Any concerns of the neighbouring countries of\nJapan have no basis. Because the other states are also militarily developed and\nwe all know that in the current era when the big states are nuclear forces, any\nproblems between the states are solved by diplomacy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moreover, another great reason for the\nincorrectness of the concerns of neighbouring states is the fact that the more than\nseventy years of peace and prosperity enjoyed by the Japanese people have made\nthe Japanese very appreciative of these achievements which gained by living in\na highly liberal and democratic society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On the other hand, the participation of the Japanese\nArmed Forces in international military missions abroad and as persistently\nasked by the USA from Japan (participation in the international mission for the\nsafety of the Hurmuz Strait in the Persian Gulf) although it will give the image that Japan is\npartly interfering with the issues of the third countries, but on the other\nhand, is not possible the third\/fourth world economy to not be involved in\ninternational military missions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What should alarm the political world of Japan\nis the fact that raw materials are scarce from domestic production, forcing\nJapan to depend, primarily on energy, on imports of these raw materials from\nthird countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Securing guarantees for the seamless flow of the\nnecessary raw materials to the Japanese economy, mainly from its allies and not\nonly, should be the issue that the Japanese will employ in detail before\nproceeding with the change to article 9.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In addition, Japan’s political system must\nunderstand that the participation in international military missions could give\nthe possibility of military engagement. How will the peaceful Japanese society\nreact if there are Japanese military deaths?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Japan and all the liberal democratic societies\nof the planet are subject to significant political costs when their military\npersonnel lose their lives abroad due to the participation of their country in\nmilitary actions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In this matter Japan should learn from the USA\nwhere in order to reduce human life losses use unmanned weapons systems with\nthe participation of only special forces in special operations. By this methods\nUSA manages successfully to reduce and minimize, always in relation to the past,\nany political costs may bring the losses of their military personnel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Given that with sincere dialogue between political parties\nand citizens, the above issues are clarified in detail, Japan will have to go\ninto a new era by changing its Constitution, enabling its peaceful people to\nevolve into a new field of action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The world community will welcome this change in article\n9 to the Constitution of Japan. Surely the Japanese are proud\nof the fact that they have not changed their Constitution for many years. But\nin life at both individual and national level the life law is that nothing\nstays stable and that everything changes when the time is right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thanos S. Chonthrogiannis<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and one of the longest-running prime ministers in the position of Prime Minister of Japan believes that the time…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":961,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[821,390],"tags":[945,938,934,252,936,937,935],"class_list":["post-960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asia","category-politics","tag-article-9","tag-hurmuz-straits","tag-its-time-fo-japan-to-vote-new-consitution","tag-japan","tag-japans-sdf","tag-ldp","tag-shinzo-abe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=960"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/960\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":962,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/960\/revisions\/962"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/Japanese_Diet_Hall_Design_by_Fukuzo_Watanabe.jpg\")
Photo by Author: Japanese House of Councilors,
Source: http:\/\/www.sangiin.go.jp\/japanese\/aramashi\/faq\/faq02_ph01.htm,
licensed Public Domain, https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Public_domain<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n