Wang Qin, Associate Professor of Regional Cultural Studies at the University of Tokyo
"The Postwar History of Kujo", by Noryo Kato, Chikuma Library, May 2021, 555 pages, 1,430 yen
Recently, Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Kato Katsunobu issued a surprising statement that "the Covid-19 disaster is a good time to amend the Constitution" on the grounds of creating an "emergency" clause; it can be seen that the long-planned constitutional revision agenda of the Shinzo Abe government has not been silenced with Abe's resignation. As far as Japanese society is concerned, on the one hand, the people have long been tired of the protracted debate between "constitutional revision" and "constitutional protection"; on the other hand, academic and critical circles have carried out endless and innovative interpretations of the post-war constitution - and almost all interpretations will claim to be beyond the historical "constitutional revision" and "constitutional protection" disputes. The objective result of this situation is that although "constitutional revision" is still a controversial topic, it is also more and more obsessed with the interpretation of articles and the praise of ideas.
Against this background, The publication of noriko Kato, a critic who has been relentlessly thinking about postwar Relations between Japan and the United States for decades, has a realistic relevance in the compilation and publication of his posthumous manuscript "The Postwar History of Kujō" ("9JŌ の戦後史" Chikuma Shobo, 2021). This five-hundred-page work continues the investigation of Japan's post-war constitution in the previous work "Nine Entry Points" ("9 Entry" Creation Society, 2019), and comprehensively reviews the series of tortuous games between Japan and the United States around the Japanese Constitution since the 1950s, especially the provisions of article 9 on the abandonment of force and the Japan-US security treaty, revealing the political trends and intentions behind the controversy between "constitutional revision" and "constitutional protection" in different periods. It can be said that this is an important treatise of original significance in recent years, which helps us to properly understand the ideological historical position of the current Japanese government's attempt to revise the Constitution, so as to jump out of the slogan-style understanding of simply labeling "constitutional revision" and "constitutional protection" as "militarism" and "democracy" respectively.
Noryo Kato's "Introduction to Nine Articles"
Kato first pointed out that at the time of the promulgation of the Constitution, the dominant understanding of the "Nine Articles" could be divided into two kinds: one understanding was to follow MacArthur's thinking and regard the "Nine Articles" as the embodiment of advanced political ideas, and the other understanding was represented by Dulles, the future Japanese envoy of the United States, who believed that behind the "Nine Articles" contained the calculation of "powerlessness" of Japan and preventing Japan from moving toward Soviet communism. Both of these understandings are "nine extreme interpretations established on the premise of being cut off from the international community as a whole" (p. 25). In contrast, in order to grasp the intention behind the interpretation of the "Nine Articles" by the Japanese government and intellectual circles at different times, and thus properly understand the positions and prospects of the current "constitutional revision theory" and the "constitutional protection theory", it is necessary to return to the specific historical scene.
Naturally, in the review of the post-war history of the "Nine Articles", the first historical event that needs to be mentioned is the "unilateral reconciliation" between Japan and the United States in 1951, that is, the "San Francisco Peace Treaty" signed with the United States in the absence of the Soviet Union and China. As we all know, although the signing of this peace treaty marked in the formal sense that Japan could get rid of the control of the GHQ (Allied Forces General Command in Japan) and become an independent sovereign state, in the substantive sense, everyone knew that Japan was still subordinate to the United States; even relying on the "Japan-US Security Treaty" signed at that time, the US military garrison in Japan was exclusively semi-permanent. In response to the pro-American attitude of the Yoshida Shigeru government on the one hand and opposing the revision of the Constitution on the other, the subsequent government of Ichiro Hatoyama tried to reverse Japan's dependence on the United States, which made the maintenance and change of the "Nine Articles" of the Constitution a major issue of controversy. Thus, the "constitutional amendment theory" that emerged in the 1950s – whether it was the "Constitutional Inquiry" case proposed by the Liberal Party in 1954 or the constitutional correction proposed by the president of the Improvement Party during the same period, Shigemitsu Aoi , aimed to emphasize the "imposed" color of the post-war constitution by the United States, and the intention behind it was to seek the possibility of Japan's secession from the United States by amending the constitution. Kato specifically mentioned that in 1955, Aoi Shigemitsu proposed the Treaty of Mutual Defense between Japan and the United States (Trial Case), the purpose of which was not to "revive pre-war militarism or statism, but to free Japan from the shackles of subordination to the United States" (p. 75); rather, in response to Dulles's rejection of the "Nine Articles" as an equal relationship between the United States and Japan, Shigemitsu Aoi tried to realize Japan's independence as a sovereign state by rearmament. However, the fact is that the formation of the Liberal Democratic Party in 1955, which marked the merger of conservative parties (also known as "conservative contracts"), and the constitutional amendment bill it promoted, ultimately did not receive the support of the Japanese people, so that the constitutional revision forces and the constitutional protection forces formed a "two-thirds" confrontation that lasted until the end of the Cold War. Kato commented on this: "What was lacking in the group of political reintegration groups that were first revised in this period, that is, political reintegration groups that did not fully experience the humiliation of occupation," was precisely the "necessary knowledge, preparation, and awareness" to make a clear distinction between American independence and return to pre-war nationalism (p. 75). In other words, precisely because the constitutionalists of the 1950s have always focused on the almost exclusive interrelationship between Japan and the United States as two modern nation-states, they have failed to see the possibility of seeking Japan's independence not on the basis of the nation-state, but , for example, on the United Nations or other international union , that their discourse on national independence, and on constitutional revision and rearmament proposed as a premise or means, It is easy to be recycled into words similar to pre-war nationalism and even militarism. (Of course, Kato also saw that Ishibashi had insightfully proposed during the same period that a path of national independence beyond the nation-state should be sought through a "non-armed neutrality" line against rearmament and constitutional amendments; nevertheless, or because of this, Ishibashi stressed that the Nine Articles of the Constitution should be temporarily "frozen" before the United Nations fully performed its functions—we will see that there is a certain degree of similarity between this proposition and Kato's own "answer.") ）
Thus, after the failure of constitutional revision – in other words, the failure of attempts to achieve national independence through constitutional amendment – the Conservatives' plan for independence to the United States lost its operational reality. The result of this situation is that, on the one hand, the nationalist overtones of the "constitutional revision theory" that existed only as a possibility, and even the pre-war nationalist color, which became more and more intense, gave birth to the "theory of constitutional revision without a way out" that was divorced from reality and was stuck in extreme ideology (perhaps paradoxically, the people's wariness of this possibility behind the "constitutional revision theory", while thwarting the government's attempt to amend the constitution in 1955, actually led to the rise of the nationalist "constitutional revision theory" that they feared); on the other hand, " The independence and democratization of previous integration gradually began to diverge and antagonize into two tendencies that emphasized pre-war values (independence) and post-war values (democratization) (p. 157).
Kato reminds us, however, that one of the failed attempts to amend the Constitution in 1955 is that it is worth emphasizing so far: "Constitutional correction and the withdrawal of foreign troops have formed a smooth relationship." Logically, the first constitutional revision is the opposite of the current constitutional revision, in which constitutional correction and the self-defense forces' military assistance to foreign armies (the exercise of the right of collective self-defense) form a reciprocal relationship. That is to say, judging from the LDP's theory of constitutional revision and rearmament in the period of conservative contracts, the current LDP's constitutional revision theory has exactly the opposite motives - the latter's motivation is to respond to the demands of the United States and attempt to revise the Constitution and re-armament in order to become the vanguard of the US world strategy. (p. 86) In this sense, also as a "means", the purpose of constitutional revision and rearmament in the 1950s is the opposite of the purpose of the LDP today; the revision of the Constitution, which was once a separation from the attachment to the United States, is now a means of strengthening the dependence on the United States. Why is that?
Before elaborating on this upside-down historical background, Kato first reviewed the "security struggle" that took place around 1960 and the significance of this movement for Japan-U.S. relations. As mentioned earlier, the Hatoyama regime's 1955 proposal for constitutional revision ended in failure, and the demand for "American independence" and the demand for "democracy" evolved into two different orientations or choices. "Proceeding from the 'constitutional feeling among the people', the creed of 'even if it is not independent, we must first guarantee democratization and pacifism' has been gradually established, and a 'discord between development in the opposite direction' has been formed with the plan of constitutional revision, because in the constitutional revision theory, the highest priority is independence, and for this reason it is necessary to carry out rearmament and constitutional revision, and on this basis to talk about democratization and pacifism. Maruo Maruyama believes that the security struggle is an opportunity for this 'discord' to be maximized and exploded. (p. 151) The "security struggle" can be said to be a pivotal inflection point in the post-war history of the "Nine Points." On the one hand, from the side of the Japanese government, Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi's deep hostility to communism led him to take a pro-American line in the international situation at that time, and finally revised the Japan-US Security Treaty with the United States - although from a formal point of view, this revision to some extent restored Japan's "equal relations" with the United States, but as Kato highlighted, as warned by japanese diplomat Nishi Haruhiko at the time, this move is equivalent to showing the outside world. Japan took the initiative to adopt a military and geopolitical posture of joint confrontation with the United States against the Soviet Union, which may lead to the deterioration of the attitude of the Soviet Union and even China toward Japan. (Kato noted that the Cuban Missile Crisis two years later may be closely linked to the revision of the Security Treaty.) That is to say, the "neutralization" and even "communism" chips that Japan originally held in its hands during this period did indeed exert a non-negligible influence on Japan-US relations, and may even have changed Japan's subordination to the United States; however, the pro-US policy of the Kishi government made Japan lose the possibility of "neutralization" and thus also lost the excellent historical opportunity for US independence. On the other hand, from the perspective of the many Japanese people involved in the "security struggle," Kato distinguishes between two different demands in this political movement: opposition to the "security treaty," that is, demands for U.S. independence, and "Kishi Nobusuke's oustership," i.e., "pre-war denial and democratization realization" (p. 206). Kato pointed out that when the "security struggle" advocated independence from the United States in the early stages, there were not too many participants; only when the later demands evolved into demands for the kishi government to step down, the whole movement became a national movement. Whether or not Kato's division is realistic, it is important to see that the separation of "independence" and "democracy" did mark the direction of Japanese society after the 1960s and the fate of the post-war constitution.
On June 18, 1960, Japanese protesters surrounded the Diet in demonstrations.
This is because after the fall of the kigata government in 1960, the "old Yoshida faction" Liberal Democratic Party regime, which returned to the political arena, integrated the "theory of constitutional protection" and "attachment to the United States" by implementing the constitutional understanding adopted by Yoshida that year, the "Nine Articles of the Constitution as a Flood Control Embankment", and thus laid the foundation for the depoliticization of Japanese society and a high degree of economic development. In response, Kato wrote: "The old Yoshida faction presents itself as a dove faction that is conservative and follows the pro-American = subordinate line to the United States. While vigorously resisting the demand for rearmament from the United States, it also established the highest priority of healthy economic growth at home, thus establishing a new constitutional position, that is, to meet the psychological needs of so-called economic nationalism. (pp. 207-208) The resulting Japanese Self-Defense Forces' theory of "interpretation of constitutionality" also laid the key foreshadowing for the coexistence of the "Nine Articles" of the Constitution and Japan-US security relations. On the other hand, the theory of constitutional revision and rearmament (LDP hawks) that emerged during this period out of nationalist sentiments, because of the loss of positive practical significance, did not use constitutional revision as a "means" for american independence, as was the case with the first "constitutional revision theory", but rather as a "symbol of independence" (p. 209) - the "deterioration" of the "constitutional revision theory". In the context of the era of separating politics from economy and depoliticizing society and blindly pursuing a high degree of economic development, the "aspirations of the people" gradually shifted from "independence" to "democratization" and then from "democratization" to "enjoyment of economic prosperity" (p. 223), so most citizens are more willing to acquiesce in the existence of the Self-Defense Forces and Japan-US security relations in the form of "constitutional interpretation" under the premise of maintaining the status quo of the Constitution. In this context, neither the "revision of the Constitution" nor the "theory of constitutional protection" can touch Japan's dependence on the United States.
After the "Security Movement," the next historical pivot of the postwar constitution was the end of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. Kato mentioned that although there were ideas like Kitaro Shimizu and Jun E, such as Kiyomizu Andyotaro and JunE, which were not adequately answered in the 1960s and 1990s, the question that Japan should do in the context of Japan's economic prosperity and the premise of the discourse is what Japan should do to achieve independence from the United States and ensure its own security without falling into pre-war nationalism – in other words, how to prevent the surrounding countries from adopting a policy of isolation of itself. This fundamental theoretical question, which at the end of the Cold War, became an urgent practical problem that Japan needed to face, because due to the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Japan-US Security Treaty no longer had military relevance to the United States on the one hand, but carried the symbolic significance of the United States as a "hegemonic" country, and on the other hand, it became a necessity for Japan in terms of "security", "this difference created infinite uneasiness on the Japanese side, and caused Japan to fall into endless concessions in the future" (p. 323). In other words, Japan needs the military presence of the United States in order to resist a hypothetical military threat from neighboring countries, but neither geopolitically nor simply in the context of the explicit provisions of the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty, the United States has neither a clear commitment to japan's security nor the timeliness of assistance in the event of actual war. As a result, the current Japanese government's intention to amend the Constitution is diametrically opposed to the goal of the constitutional revision theory of the 1950s, which is not only no longer a means of independence for the United States, but the result of obedience to the United States.
This historical situation also explains the various increasingly bizarre "constitutional revision theories" that have emerged in Japanese society since 2000. In Kato's view, in order to offset the humiliation of blind attachment to the United States, the conservative camp's "constitutional revision theory" represented by the Liberal Democratic Party's draft constitutional amendment gradually began to "unnecessarily advocate a pre-war nationalist proposition" (p. 379), and even re-emphasized the deontological color of the pre-war constitution for the people. Correspondingly, Japan has gradually shown a diplomatic bluff and a combination of "retro-style tendencies and bowing to the United States" in its diplomacy, as well as the rightward shift of society as a whole (p. 395). At the same time, the deliberate avoidance of the current situation of Japan-US relations has led to the strange theory that "opposing the "Japan-US Security Treaty is a traitor" appeared in the remarks of some extreme right-wingers. On the face of it, the Abe administration's constitutional revisionist theory seems to be quite "low-key" compared to these ideologically "reactionary" claims — but Kato's point-and-shoot point shows that in Abe's case, there is not even a sense of humiliation in clinging to the United States. Especially after the 311 earthquake, the "sense of humiliation" in Japanese society was increasingly replaced by a selfish "sense of exclusion": "Okinawa is different from the mainland, it is not us; Fukushima is contaminated with nuclear radiation, it is not safe, it is best not to go near; the self-defense forces are social outliers, and now they are just servants of the United States." If you are content with this kind of thinking, you will not have a 'sense of humiliation'. (p. 414) Thus, the existence of the United States in Japan became a matter of course, and both national independence and the distorted structure of postwar Japanese society were obscured and ignored in the process of following the United States.
If the historical evolution of the "constitutional revision theory" from the 1950s to the present day is a clue that has gone through twists and turns and degeneration, what about the post-war history of the "constitutional protection theory" that first appeared as its opposition force? It is worth noting that in Kato's discourse, before the Cold War, it is better to say that the various discourses of "constitutional revision" reflect the real thinking of the current situation; therefore, compared with the complexity of the "constitutional revision theory", Kato believes that the logic of "constitutional protection theory" has "hardly changed since the period of Maruyama Maruo in the 1960s", and its main points are fourfold:
First, as a pioneering legal existence, the nine articles of the Constitution and pacifism embody the aspirations obtained through the veins of modern peace thought and the tragic experience of world wars in the twentieth century; second, in the current nuclear age, this pacifism forms precisely the basis of a security strategy of practical significance; third, this is the most precious gift that the Japanese people have received at the cost of war experience; fourth, it is inscribed here with Japan's commitment to the Asian countries, that is, to reflect on the aggression that has been carried out. No more going to war. (pp. 423-424)
However, Kato pointedly pointed out that it should not be ignored that since the promulgation and implementation of the post-war constitution, behind the logic of the "constitution protection theory" or behind the people's understanding of "constitutional protection", there has been a certain "self-deception", that is, structurally retaining the position of the "national system" believed in before the war, and only changing the "emperor" who occupied this position in the past to the current "nine articles". "The absolute inviolability of the Emperor at the head of the world, the 'glory' of this imperial idea, is replaced unchanged by the 'glory' of the idea of peace, which upholds the Constitution at the head of the world and 'war abandonment in a special sense'" (p. 449). In this sense, the mere "defense" of the Nine Articles of the Constitution in terms of ideas and principles may not be more responsible than the conservatives who regard the revision of the Constitution as a "symbol" of Japan's independence. In today's historical context, even in the "Theory of Constitutional Protection", the "Nine Articles" have become more and more a kind of passive resistance, so that many people believe that in order to defend the "Nine Articles", they have to acquiesce in the existence of the security relationship between Japan and the United States. However, once the above premise is accepted, then there may be only a paper difference between "constitutional protection" and "constitutional revision" - for example, in recent years, Hidero Shinoda and the like have proposed constitutional revision designs to "defend" the Constitution by exploring the original "intentions" (to be precise, the intentions of the Americans) on the premise of "post-status status" of the Japan-US alliance. Faced with today's complex situation, Kato writes:
Neither the conservative camp nor the reform camp has considered the question: How can the postwar international order and the countries around Asia-Pacific be mutually acceptable to their own security guarantees in the postwar international order and the countries around Asia-Pacific without the United States? (348 pages)
In Kato's view, the significance of the "Nine Articles" is not how advanced and noble its ideas are—reveling in this idealistic praise, which is tantamount to shelving the effectiveness and potential of the "Nine Articles" in reality—but in thinking about how to explore ways to ensure national security outside the security relationship between Japan and the United States on the basis of the "Nine Articles." If the "Nine Articles" are indeed a security strategy of real practical significance in today's nuclear weapons era, as the "Theory of Constitutional Protection" says, then it should not be regarded as a weak and weak principle that needs to be defended by compromise and concessions, let alone as a last resort to resist Japan's return to militarism, but must be regarded as an effective weapon to break the status quo. To this end, Kato believes that what needs to be done is not only to separate the "Nine Articles" from the "Japan-US Security Treaty", but also to temporarily separate the "Nine Articles" from the state's commitments and requirements for the physical protection of its citizens.
In short, in the face of the complex situation in which the "Nine Articles" and the dependency relationship with the United States have become entangled and seem to be premised on each other, Kato's answer is that Japan should return to the "origin" of defeat, that is, the punishment of the international community for Japan's past wars of aggression and the expectations for Japan's future that contributed to the birth of the Nine Articles of the Constitution. Specifically, Kato argues that today's Japan Self-Defense Forces should "reorganize into a United Nations force, clearly define the command authority now vested in the form of a secret treaty to the U.S. military as unincorporated as unincorporated, and set up a Homeland Defense Force 'to the minimum extent necessary,' but this Homeland Defense Force does not have the right to dispatch peace" (p. 526)—that is, to reorganize Japan's military forces entirely around the United Nations, thereby breaking through Japan's dependence on the United States." It is precisely because in the constitutions of modern nation-states that only japan's post-war constitution clearly stipulates the principle of renunciation of force that the above-mentioned UNITED Nations-led security strategy is possible. "The association with the United Nations, the trust of others, the will of the people towards the separation from the Japan-U.S. alliance — the main thread that brings all this together is the Nine Articles of the Constitution" (p. 527). However, the above-mentioned scheme is only a paper possibility; In Kato's view, the source of this "strength" can only be the will of the people. Near the end of the discussion, Kato once again mentioned the "security struggle", arguing that the national political movement of 1960 can still give us great enlightenment today, because this incident greatly changed the policy and attitude of the United States toward Japan:
Until the end of the Cold War, the policy of constitutional protection-light armed-economic growth promoted by conservative dovish factions was possible conditional on the condition that it was the inhibition of the "neutrality card" formed by "security" that opened the entrance to it, that is, Japan might have been neutralized or socialistized if it was not careful at that time (read the documents at the time, you can see that the US State Department and Embassy at that time completely regarded the "security struggle" as a communist movement).
It can also be seen from this incident that if the will of the people is not presented in some way, the "power" of politics cannot be generated. The most general way to present the will of the people is through elections and national votes. (pp. 528-529)
Interestingly, it is precisely in these two important passages that Kato highlights aspects that have been downplayed or corrected in his previous descriptions, namely the "security struggle" as a political movement against the U.S.-Japan alliance and for sovereign independence. That is to say, perhaps subjectively speaking, the opportunity for the development of this political movement into a national movement was indeed not a demand for "independence", but an opposition to the "democratization" demand of the Kishi Nobusuke government's attempt to restore pre-war values; but objectively speaking, the "misreading" or "misidentification" of this incident in the United States made the movement have unexpected effects, even if the latter was not materialized in its subsequent history as Japan's policy of seeking independence from the United States. It is no exaggeration to say that the effect of this "misidentification" is destined to be unattainable by any meeting between the leaders of the two countries in the form of private talks or secret meetings – whether it is Aoi Shigemitsu or Yukio Hatoyama, as history has repeatedly shown. In this regard, the "most general" method of presenting the will of the people may not depend, as Kato finally put it, on elections and votes, but on another and another struggle of the people.
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