Japan Seeks Greater Global Role

TOKYO - Japan is on the move, this time seemingly for sure, after several false starts during the last six decades of passive pacifism.

A quiet pride is evinced in Japan`s dispatch of troops for peacekeeping in Iraq even though the polls say a bare majority opposes the deployment. Says a business executive: "That`s their profession; that`s what they`ve been trained for."

A debate over revising the constitution, particularly Article IX that forbids the use of military power to resolve disputes, is underway. Some say an amendment is unnecessary, that only a reinterpretation would permit Japanese forces to take part in collective security.

The need for that security arises largely from a perceived threat from North Korea. "We are angry about North Korea, not frightened of them," says a retired diplomat, pointing to abductions of Japanese, North Korean missiles being shot over Japan, and North Korea`s plans to acquire nuclear weapons.

Even so, a recent poll showed that 73 percent of the Japanese approved Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi`s trip to North Korea to seek the return of Japanese held captive there.

On a wider front, Japanese say their nation should be more active internationally. Another executive says: "Japan should make more of an international contribution." Many Japanese still wince from criticism that they contributed only money ($13 billion) to the allied effort in the Gulf War of 1991 while the soldiers of other nations died in battle.

Japan has begun drafting a new five-year plan on defense that will focus on forces for peacekeeping and reconstruction in war torn countries. The Foreign Ministry is preparing its delegation at the United Nations to take a seat on the Security Council next year.

When the United Nations was founded 50 years ago next year, Japan was named an enemy nation. Japanese are seeking to have that derogatory label removed. Moreover, many Japanese contend that their nation should be a permanent member of the Security Council along with Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States.

Older Japanese point to a generational change in which younger Japanese, meaning those born after the end of World War II in 1945, are coming into the establishment that governs Japan. They are said to be more assertive and less constrained by the rituals of today.

Hiroshi Nakanishi, a 41-year-old political scientist at Kyoto University, was quoted in a Tokyo newspaper: "We instead prefer to be rational, and we think it`s all right to change what can no longer meet the times."

Underlying this new self-confidence is the apparent recovery of the Japanese economy after 15 years in the doldrums, although some economists, Japanese and Western, contend the upswing is illusory and Japan has yet to undertake serious reforms.

Amid these upbeat indicators, two things have not changed. One is the sleaze of Japanese politics. Several Japanese leaders, of the ruling and opposition parties, have been forced to resign recently because they failed to pay mandatory premiums into a pension fund.

The other is the absence of Japan`s plans to assemble an armed force commensurate with its population and economic strength. South Koreans, North Koreans and Chinese have repeatedly expressed concern that this is coming; a few American neo-conservatives have even advocated that Japan obtain nuclear weapons.

The evidence, however, is not there, not in law, in policy of any political party, and surely not in public opinion. It would be a good bet that blood would run in the streets if Japan`s government sought to install the conscription that would be necessary to build an armed force. The same would be true if Japan, with its nuclear allergy that is the legacy of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, set out to acquire nuclear weapons.

After its devastating defeat in World War Two, Japan wrapped itself in a pacifist cocoon, emphasized trade and not offending either suppliers of materials or customers in markets abroad. After Japan`s economy blossomed in the 1970s, there was speculation that Japan would assert leadership and possibly seek dominion in Asia.

One joke after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 held that the Cold War between Russia and the U.S. was over and Japan won. The Japanese, however, were not ready for international responsibility despite the urgings of nationalist leaders like Ichiro Ozawa of the opposition Democratic Party of Japan, who wanted Japan to become a "normal" nation.

Today, that has changed and Japan seems ready to take on that task.