Drawing on Carl Schmitt’s definition of politics as the act of identifying who is friend and who is enemy, this essay argues that a nation cannot survive through vague consensus-seeking, and examines the security significance of Japan’s revised Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Act in preventing the outflow of weapons and nuclear-related information.

2020-06-02
In other words, the act of “listening broadly to everyone’s opinions” is either a doctrine of religion or a curriculum of elementary education, and has absolutely nothing to do with politics.
The following is a continuation of the previous chapter.
The political philosopher Carl Schmitt, in his book The Concept of the Political, translated by Hiroshi Tanaka and Takeo Harada, defined politics as follows.
It is “the act of making clear who is enemy and who is friend.”
In other words, the act of “listening broadly to everyone’s opinions” is either a doctrine of religion or a curriculum of elementary education, and has absolutely nothing to do with politics.
An enemy is one who denies one’s own existence, and a friend is one who affirms one’s own existence.
Those who conduct politics must independently define “who the enemy is,” and if they abandon this judgment, it means the disappearance of their status as a “political subject,” in other words, the loss of sovereignty.
In a world where hatred writhes, one cannot survive by trying to please everyone.
If that were the case, Japan would have to do what the Swiss Confederation once did: distribute automatic rifles, SIG SG 550s, to every household and maintain a strict system of universal conscription.
That is not realistic.
What is needed now is the existence of a leader who possesses a clear view of the nation and who can sharply distinguish friend from enemy.
At that very time, Prime Minister Abe revised the Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Act in November of last year, and it came into force on May 8 of this year.
The purpose of this revision was to prevent shares in companies engaged in weapons manufacturing and the nuclear power industry from being purchased by foreign capital.
Certainly, problems that should not be left unattended still remain, such as foreign capital buying up water-source areas in Hokkaido.
However, preventing the outflow of information on Japan’s weapons capabilities and nuclear power to other countries is something that must be resolved as a matter of the highest priority.
For example, in May 2016, among the Japanese government’s own sanctions against North Korea, namely the measure banning re-entry into Japan, there was also a male associate professor of the Kyoto University Research Reactor Institute, a specialist in nuclear engineering.
In this way, the situation surrounding our country is by no means peaceful.
We may now be in a period in which, unless those in power make clear the distinction between friend and enemy, we must even assume the possibility of falling into a situation in which the survival of us Japanese people will not be permitted.
This essay continues.