2018-09-15

Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida originally explained that Article 9 renounced even a war of self-defense, while Japanese Communist Party leader Sanzō Nosaka denounced it as “nothing more than an empty provision.”
This article examines how the government and GHQ later reversed their interpretation after the outbreak of the Korean War.

2018-09-15
The following is taken from this morning’s Sankei-shō column in the Sankei Shimbun.
It is a truly superb essay.
Emphasis in the text is mine.
“We have renounced not only war undertaken in the exercise of the right of self-defense, but also the right of belligerency.”
Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida explained Article 9 of the new Constitution in these terms during the Diet deliberations on the Constitution in 1946.
If even a war of self-defense was prohibited, there could be no logical basis for recognizing the Self-Defense Forces under that interpretation.
We should first remember that this was the government’s original interpretation of the Constitution.
▼Interestingly, it was the Japanese Communist Party that strongly opposed Article 9.
Sanzō Nosaka, who served as chairman of the party for twenty-four years and was later expelled, argued on behalf of the party:
“This is nothing more than an empty provision.”
“There is a danger that renouncing our country’s right of self-defense will imperil the independence of the nation.”
▼The transformation of the Communist Party, which now calls for the preservation of Article 9, is remarkable indeed.
The government, however, has been no less adept at changing its position.
In 1954, Seiichi Ōmura, Director General of the Japan Defense Agency, announced the government’s unified interpretation:
“The use of armed force as a means of defending the national territory when Japan is subjected to an armed attack does not violate the Constitution.”
▼Prime Minister Yoshida had also stated that “many wars in recent years have been waged in the name of the right of national defense.”
Nevertheless, the government’s constitutional interpretation was reversed by 180 degrees.
Behind this reversal was the intention of the General Headquarters of the Allied Powers, or GHQ, to have Japan itself fill the strategic vacuum created when American occupation forces were dispatched to the Korean War.
▼“It goes without saying that this ideal—Article 9—must yield to the entirely natural law of self-preservation.”
General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, emphasized this point in his New Year’s message to the Japanese people in 1951.
Having imposed Article 9 himself, this was opportunism in its most extreme form.
▼From the circumstances of its enactment and the process of deliberation to the interpretation of its provisions, the Constitution has reached the present day through a succession of improvised evasions—including the fact that it was, in reality, made by GHQ.
As I watched the Liberal Democratic Party presidential election debate hosted by the Japan National Press Club on September 14, I once again felt strongly that this situation could not be allowed to continue.