“We the Japanese People” – A Reflection on Public Opinion

“How can defeat in one war suppress for so long Japan’s samurai spirit?” intoned George Liska, a European-born, American theorist of international politics. And Japan’s current diplomatic rift with China over historical justice – Japan’s inability to satisfactorily bring closure to the memory of empire and war – propagates a nebulous image of virulent nationalism, lurking. A “New York Times” editorial cautioned, Japan’s Foreign Minister Taro Aso “has been neither honest nor wise in the inflammatory statements he has been making about Japan’s disastrous era of militarism, colonialism and war crimes that culminated in the Second World War.” (February 13, 2006) Over a half century of Japanese pacifism is somehow not to be believed.

Japan began anew in 1945 with an intense popular fear and hatred of war. Henceforth, several generations of Japanese have lived with the consensus that never again will their country be a cause of war, and the country effectively withdrew from the world of international power politics - this has been Japan’s way of repenting for war and empire. Opinion polls suggest Japan is still bereft of state-centered patriotism.

Pundits in Japan are remarking on the rise of assertive nationalism among the young. Older Japanese, though mostly born after the war, cannot completely dissociate the national flag with the image of militarist Japan, and they are struck by – even envious of – the carefree attitude with which the young wave the national flag at international sporting events. Yet a 2005 survey of high school students found that only 13% feel pride when they see the national flag. In comparison, the figure for American students was 55%, and for Chinese students 50%. Japanese students of a society deeply uncomfortable with the militarist past are not properly given modern history lessons, but their sentiments carry society’s pacifistic impulse.

Reviving Patriotism

The conservative, ruling Liberal-Democratic Party shows impatience with the condition of Japanese patriotism. The party is in the midst of amending for the first time the basic law on education, written during the American military occupation (1945-1952) as part of the American dictated democratic reform. The party wants to include “love of country” in the public school curriculum.

While the Liberal-Democratic Party has in mind straightforward patriotism, of pledging allegiance to the flag kind, the coalition partner in government, the Komeito Party, will not have it. Komeito is backed by a Buddhist organization whose leaders were persecuted by the “thought police” during the Second World War. Komeito remains staunchly suspicious of state-centered patriotism.

So the compromise bill speaks of instilling respect for the country’s history and tradition, as well as those of other nations, and nurturing the spirit of international peace and development. “What do you feel proud about Japan?” the people have been asked over the years in opinion polls conducted by the prime minister’s office. The top three and dominant answers are long history and tradition, beautiful nature, culture and the arts. The education bill then confirms public sentiment, despite Liberal-Democratic intent. And the elements of popular pride of country are self-referential and not the aggressive flag waving kind.

In the same series of opinion polls, only three to four percent of the respondents find pride in the unity and coherence of the people, which is a source of Liberal-Democratic concern. “Do you love your country?” the people are also asked. Those who answer yes hovers around 50%, while about 40% say, “I don’t know.” At the same time, nearly 80% respond that there is need to nurture love of country. A large proportion of the Japanese find something amiss, but what they want exactly is unclear. Still popular reaction to the government’s recent handling of China offers hints.

The China Threat

A growing number of Japanese officials have been characterizing China’s military buildup as a considerable threat to Japan. And Sino-Japanese diplomatic relation has been at its worst since the 1972 rapprochement. At issue is Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s annual visit to Yasukuni Shrine, where the spirits of modern Japan’s war dead are enshrined, including those of fourteen judged to be war criminals by the allied powers following the Second World War.

A variety of opinion polls show the vast majority of Japanese concerned about their country’s relations with China. Reacting to media reports on anti-Japanese demonstrations in China, those who hold unfavorable feelings toward China have surged to over 70%. At the same time, a March 2006 public opinion poll conducted by the foreign ministry found that 78% of the respondents saw the need to improve relations with China. And in an April poll conducted by the conservative national daily, Yomiuri, 61% blamed Prime Minister Koizumi for the deteriorating relationship. Even among those who support the prime minister honoring the country’s war dead at Yasukuni, 43% found Koizumi responsible for perverting affairs with China. Most agree that the problem of Sino-Japanese relations is the Yasukuni visit and the related issue of the history of Japanese aggression. In short, the people are not looking to embrace a confrontational nationalism.

Yet nobody, including members of the Liberal-Democratic Party, really likes having to deal with the country’s past because it goes against everything they believe now. They hope time will eventually erase the memories. The net result is Sino-Japanese gridlock. Then 47% of the Japanese think that relations with China will improve over the next twenty years, while 11% think that relations will worsen, according to the foreign ministry poll. The people are relatively sanguine.

The major national dailies, conservative and liberal, have counseled the prime minister to cease the Yasukuni visit. Public evaluation of the five years of Koizumi’s foreign policy is low. The people are more moderate than their government, but they support Koizumi’s Liberal Democratic Party because it gets the job of government done. Given the recent revival of the long ailing Japanese economy, especially, the Koizumi government enjoys a remarkable 70% approval rate.

Japanese society is rapidly ageing, and the population is shrinking. What the people care about are social security, medical care, neighborhood safety and the like. An aggressive nationalism of geriatrics would indeed be a historic feat.

Threat of War

The simplest indicator of nationalism is people’s attitude toward national security. 45% of the Japanese today sense the danger of being involved in war. The figure is the highest it has been since the prime minister’s office began a survey series in 1969. The perceived, primary threat is not rising China but North Korea - since 1998, anywhere between 57% and 74% of the people have responded so.

It was in 1998 that North Korea test-fired a missile that flew over Japan, and that lone missile fundamentally altered the public’s threat perception. Poll results prior to the missile firing had found that a larger proportion of the people felt no danger of war than those who did - the figures in the 1996 survey was 30% and 21% respectively. By 2003, with the pattern reversed, 43% felt danger while 11% did not.

Foreign policy officials generally admit that the current dispatch of troops to Iraq – the first time Japanese soldiers ventured abroad since 1945 without United Nations cover – would have been difficult without the North Korean missile factor. The Japanese foreign policy circle is seeking to strengthen the alliance with the United States as a hedge against the more fluid and unpredictable post-Cold War international world and, in the neighborhood, against the rise of China and anxious North Korea. The Japanese government has been preparing the legal groundwork for possible collective security action with the United States. Japan is in the process of reacquiring the use of force as an instrument of foreign policy.

But, according to a 2006 survey by the prime minister’s office, only 19% responded that they feel the danger of war because Japan’s military preparedness is inadequate. And 17% found the cause of danger in the American alliance, that Japan will be dragged into America’s wars. Overall, as it had been during the Cold War, the majority of the Japanese public is satisfied with the existing security arrangement, a combination of the American security guarantee and the Japanese self-defense force that is proscribed from going to battle outside of Japanese territory - and doing no more and no less.

The Japanese government, wanting to do more, is cooperating with America’s global military transformation process and has agreed to relocate American forces within Japan. “Not in my backyard!” has been the outcry of all the municipalities concerned. Over 70% of the American forces in Japan are now located in the tiny island prefecture of Okinawa, close to Taiwan and far from the Japanese mainland. Okinawa is in essence one big military base, and Okinawa’s burden has made the American military practically invisible to the rest of happily pacifistic Japan. The national government now intends to spread the responsibility of hosting the American military and thereby raise the level of national security consciousness. Judging by local opposition, the national government has opened a Pandora’s box. Nationalism of the military kind remains a hard sell, notwithstanding the increased possibility of war, the people say they feel.

The Problem with America

The United States is the final guarantor of Japan’s national security. The United States has been by far the most favorite country of the Japanese, except at the height of the Vietnam War when Switzerland, with a peaceful image, ranked number one. Makoto Kobayashi, an international relations scholar at Ritsumeikan University, says the United States is the foreign country he likes and hates the most. He is attracted by its liberalism and repelled by its militarism.

The United States allows the Japanese to live with an ambiguous sense of national security - critical of American military power while depending on it, possessing a military but proscribing its use of force, suspicious of its neighbors but not coming up with constructive policies to ameliorate relations. The United States as the world’s benign hegemon is for the Japanese most desirable.

There may be those who find Japanese ambiguity ignoble, but nobility is an aristocratic virtue, the stuff of the samurai, and the vast majority of the Japanese are of peasant origin. Like the peasant characters in Akira Kurosawa’s film, Seven Samurai, the weak must do what it must, and survive by cunning wit. Heroism and moral clarity are not of the peasant.

After 9/11, many Japanese feel something dangerous unfolding in Bush’s America. The ineptitude and insensitivity of the American authorities in dealing with Hurricane Katrina helped confirm the Japanese trepidation. One survey revealed that 22% of the Japanese favored Bush’s re-election, while 56% wished for a President John Kerry. Just as Beijing is waiting for Prime Minister Koizumi to step down next September to begin a new diplomacy, many in Japan are waiting for the next American president to restore a benignly hegemonic and noble United States.

We the Japanese People

Japan is in the midst of a grand social transformation. Political manners, economic rules, patterns of everyday life and international relations are all in flux. The last time Japan saw change of great magnitude was after the defeat in the Second World War by American design. This time, there is no blueprint, and the Japanese are groping for a vision. What do the Japanese want?

The ruling Liberal-Democratic Party wants to write a new Japanese constitution. For six decades, not a single word of the American-authored constitution has been amended. At issue is article nine in which the Japanese people “forever renounce” the threat or use of force to settle international disputes and the possession of a military. The Liberal-Democrats want to properly recognize the existing self-defense force and restore “normalcy” to the Japanese state by reacquiring the sovereign right of defense.

Furthermore, there is the Liberal-Democrats’ conservative tendency to see the constitution as a tool of rule. The party has never been comfortable with the liberal assumption of the American-authored constitution, which is a guarantee of the rights and liberties of citizens. The party wants to write a constitution that includes a set of duties and obligations of citizens to the state, including patriotism.

According to a May 2006 survey by the liberal national daily, Asahi, there is now a slight majority of 55% favoring constitutional amendment. The most enthusiastic constitutional revisionists are women in their thirties; 67% of them say yes. They are on the whole supportive of the pacifistic spirit of article nine, and they want to add more rights and liberties to the current document that begins, “We the Japanese people.” Moreover, 72% of the people say constitutional revision should not be trusted to the lawmakers. Japan is in for an interesting time.