Tokyo obviously has a very innovative mind. Starting from 2006, it has associated its Coast Guard with Japan’s foreign aid programs. The Japan Coast Guard helped train Southeast Asian countries’ marine forces and provided them with technological supports. The JCG is actually Japan’s fourth armed force after the army, navy and air force but has been portrayed as a police department. Japan’s foreign aid authorities set up an anti-terrorism institutional fund, which has financed purchases of six patrol boats; three for Indonesia and three for the Philippines. Tokyo says the aid did not violate the arms export ban as the boats carry no weaponry and are used only for coastal patrol, though the vessels are armor-plated.

Given the aforementioned facts, the claim that the new principles announced on April 1 was a substantive change from the old principles has to be called nothing but an overstatement. Just like what Tokyo has done to erode the pacifist Constitution and the self-defense limitation bit by bit, Japan’s pacifist skin marked by the Three Principles of arms export ban has long been peeled off piece by piece.

If there has been anything that did change, that was the growing worries among the Japanese people. On April 6, visiting U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told Abe that the U.S. “welcomes” Tokyo’s plan to revise the Constitution to allow the Self-Defense Force to exercise the right to collective self-defense. The following day, The Asahi Shimbun published a poll about the revision plan. According to the poll, 63 percent of the public agreed that Japan “should keep from exercising the right to collective self-defense,” nearly 10 percent more than a year ago. Only 12 percent agree that the Abe administration can “change the interpretation of the Constitution to fulfill the objective of exercising the right to collective self-defense.” Another 29 percent of the respondents opted for “exercising (of the right) tolerable,” but half of them said that as a prerequisite, Japan “needs to obtain understanding from neighboring countries.” Commenting on Article 9 of the Constitution, which has been viewed as the symbol of Japan’s pacifist spirit after World War II, 64 percent of the poll respondents chose “better not to revise it,” a remarkable rise from last year’s 52 percent, while a meagerly 29 percent opted for “better to revise it.” Opponents of the plan to change the arms export ban rose from 71 percent last year to 77 percent.

Japanese public’s worries over the Abe administration’s feverish pursuit of military build-up should not be ignored. If Abe, with support from the majority in the Diet, eventually has the “cabinet decision” approved on the issues of arms export and the right to collective self-defense, things will not end there. Constitution Article 9, pacifist heritage and all other “hindrances” to Abe’s military expansion will be removed. In the end, not only the Japanese people’s will, but also the post-war world order led by the U.S., will be dumped. In a few years, it may dawn to the world that on April Fool’s Day 2014, Japan was truly changing the course of history.

Jin Ying is a Research Associate at the Institute of Japanese Studies at CASS.

This article was first published at www.chinausfocus.com. To see the original version please visit http://www.chinausfocus.com/peace-security/eased-arms-export-ban-changed-and-unchanged/