It is not the end of militarism in Japan

wchao37  Updated: 2004-04-08 09:51

It isn't even the beginning of the end for the nation's militarist adventurism.

Yet without a doubt it is the end of the beginning for Japanese tolerance of moral untenability of the factional behavior within the LDP that advocates eternal strife with China -- a dangerous proposition that might eventually escalate into an uncontollable armed conflict between the two pivotal Asian nations in lieu of co-operation leading to co-prosperity and mutual benefit.

The reason for such increasing intolerance in the Japanese homeland is simple: obstinate intransigence on the part of the Japanese militarists is decidedly counter-productive in revving up and sustaining real economic growth in a land long troubled by its lackluster economic performance for the past fifteen years.

It is to be remembered that on New Year's Day 2004, dressed in the long pleated trousers of a formal national costume, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi had again visited Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, a place that houses evil spirits stained with the blood of millions in East Asia and beyond.

The prime minister's trips to the Shrine have long angered China, South Korea and other Asian countries because of its association with Japan's wartime atrocities. But the Fukuoka Court's ruling was the first to find them in violation of Japan's constitutional separation of church and state by the Japanese themselves. That is the unprecedented part of the entire visitation imbroglio.

The Japanese government has claimed that Koizumi visited Yasukuni as a private citizen, and that he has made such trips to the shrine entirely on his own volition since assuming office three years ago. The prime minister has continued to visit the shrine despite strong condemnation from East Asian nations where painful memories of Japanese atrocities remain a part of their indelible consciousness in perpetuity.

He is dead wrong going into that Shrine in his official capacity.

The megatrend in East Asia today is economic integration, a fact that is widely discussed and recognized in economic forums on China. Such a trend demands that Japan and China not be at loggerheads with each other. A resolution in the case of the visitation to honor War Criminals at Yasukuni will go a long way towards re-establishing East Asian confidence in Japan and rescuing some semblance of decency in the character of the misgoverned islanders in the eyes of the world's people.

A nation submerged and languishing in the dark abyss of moral turpitude cannot easily extricate herself from economic malaise, the recovery from which will entail her meeting her own neighbors with a clear conscience. That in itself is a situation which cannot obtain under the present jingoistic and barbaric policies of the militarist factions within the LDP.

So it is fair to say that the silver lining in the cloud of Sino-Japanese relationship is a regional court's ruling today (4-7-04) that Koizumi's visit to the Yasukuni Shrine violated Japan's constitution of separation of power of State and Religion.

You of course can plausibly argue that such a ruling can be overturned in no time and that one court's ruling does not an Angelic nation make.

Yet the fact of the matter is that the world is given the first glimpse of a possibility -- however remote -- that the people of that island nation are not standing in unison ten abreast behind a placard that reads "We must go to war against China and other parts of East Asia again to conclude unfinished business."

So the fact that Koizumi has vowed that he would continue to go back and visit the shrine after the verdict is announced is not an indication of strength, but rather of a sense of doom in the viability and legitimacy of his own stance. Otherwise he would have abided by the laws of his own courts and at least wait until the result of the appeal of the ruling is made in the future to make such an announcement.

Henceforth his obstinate stance visiting Yasukuni at a time of increasing East Asian awareness of the dangers of a revived militarist regime in Japan will be second-guessed by an increasing number of his own countrymen.

Without a moral compass or a legal basis for his actions, he cannot long survive his untenable posture of offending all his East Asian neighbors.

We have to thank the man who pronounced Koizumi guilty -- Kiyonaga Kamegawa -- chief justice of the Fukuoka District Court, who ruled that Koizumi made the visits in his official capacity as prime minister, not as a private citizen. That interpretation of the law makes his visits illegal.

Needless to say, the decision is now being branded as "extremely regrettable" by the LDP crowd, but I am pretty sure many ordinary Japanese are not losing their sleep over the news that the Fukuoka Court has ruled in favor of 211 activists who had charged that Koizumi's visits to the shrine violated the constitution and had caused them psychological stress.

While the court rejected the activists' claims for $200K in compensation, the judges agreed that a former court in Osaka District had wrongfully refused to rule on the constitutionality of the visit, saying the plaintiffs in a separate case had not suffered emotional turmoil as suggested in the claim.

In the tediously laborious and inefficient Japanese court system, four other similar cases are slowly making their way up through the courts, and each of their verdicts will have an impact on how other nations view the Japanese nation, and this is why a verdict similar to the one handed down to Koizumi today will send an unmistakable signal to the Koizumi government that their stance in the matter is untenable and that not all Japanese are willing to be accomplices in the shameful act.

The above content represents the view of the author only.

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