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Modern Japan is not only responding to threats from North Korea and China but is also reevaluating its dependence on the United States, Sheila Smith shows. No longer convinced they can rely on Americans to defend their country, Tokyo s political leaders are now confronting the possibility that they may need to prepare the nation s military for war

Japan has one of Asia's most technologically advanced militaries and yet struggles to use its hard power as an instrument of national policy. The horrors of World War II continue to haunt policymakers in Tokyo, while China and South Korea remain wary of any military ambitions Japan may entertain. Yet a fundamental shift in East Asian geopolitics has forced Japan to rethink the commitment to pacifism it made during the U.S. occupation. It has increasingly flexed its muscles—deploying troops under UN auspices, participating in coercive sanctions, augmenting surveillance capabilities, and raising defense budgets. Article Nine of Japan's constitution, drafted by U.S. authorities in 1946, claims that the Japanese people "forever renounce the use of force as a means of settling international disputes." When Prime Minister Shinzo Abe broke this taboo by advocating revision of Article Nine, public outcry was surprisingly muted. The military, once feared as a security liability, now appears to be an indispensable asset, called upon with increasing frequency and given a seat at the policymaking table. In Japan Rearmed Sheila Smith argues that Japan is not only responding to increasing threats from North Korean missiles and Chinese maritime activities but also reevaluating its dependence on the United States. No longer convinced that they can rely on Americans to defend Japan, Tokyo's political leaders are now confronting the possibility that they may need to prepare the nation's military for war.

Article Nine of Japan's postwar constitution, drafted in 1946 under U.S. Occupation, claims that the Japanese people "forever renounce the use of force as a means of settling international disputes." During the Cold War, the alliance with the United States allowed Japan to develop a largely defensive military, the Self-Defense Forces. Yet in the decades since, Japan has considered new ways to use its military. Demands from Washington for greater Japanese military participation in coalition forces and a gradual embrace in Japan of contributing to UN peacekeeping led to overseas deployments. Entering the 21st century, North Korea's nuclear and missile proliferation and China's growing maritime assertiveness have challenged Japanese strategists to confront their hesitancy over the use of force. This book examines this ambivalence over the military as an instrument of power and argues that the accelerating changes in Japan's relationship with the United States and with its neighbors are forcing Tokyo's political leaders to confront the idea that they may need to order their military to do what all militaries are expected to do: prepare for war.--

No country feels China's rise more deeply than Japan. Through intricate case studies of visits by politicians to the Yasukuni Shrine, conflicts at the East China Sea boundary, concerns about food safety, and strategies of island defense, Sheila A. Smith explores the policy issues testing the Japanese government as it tries to navigate its relationship with an advancing China. She finds that Japan's interactions with China extend far beyond the negotiations between diplomats to include a broad array of social actors intent on influencing the Sino-Japanese relationship. Some of the tensions com

No country feels China's rise more deeply than Japan. Through intricate case studies of visits by politicians to the Yasukuni Shrine, conflicts at the East China Sea boundary, concerns about food safety, and strategies of island defense, Sheila A. Smith explores the policy issues testing the Japanese government as it tries to navigate its relationship with an advancing China. She finds that Japan's interactions with China extend far beyond the negotiations between diplomats to include a broad array of social actors intent on influencing the Sino-Japanese relationship. Some of the tensions com

Intro -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Seiken Kōtai and the U.S.-Japan Alliance -- The DPJ's Alliance Reform Agenda -- The LDP's Alliance Reform Agenda -- Reforming Japan's Policymaking -- Implications for Alliance Management -- Endnotes -- About the Author -- Japan's Political Transition and the U.S-Japan Alliance Roundtables.

Article 9 has been the focus of legislative debate since Japanese leaders concluded the San Francisco Peace Treaty in 1952, ending the U.S. Occupation of their country. Conservatives and progressives alike sought to consider what this new constitution meant for Japan's postwar defenses, and how it was to be translated into a rearmament policy. Until a new law was passed to create the Self Defense Force in 1954, these Diet debates offer a fascinating window on the effort to define what Article 9 meant, and the issues that provoked contention among political parties. Most of the critical questions regarding how to interpret Article 9 emerged in the first Diet debates of 1952-54 over the creation of Japan's postwar military. Even though the war was still fresh in the minds of most Japanese, Diet members had to consider how best to provide for the country's defenses as the Korean War ushered in a new era of major power competition, this time cleaved by an ideological clash between socialism and capitalism. Japan's politicians also had to confront the reality, so amply demonstrated at the end of World War II, that they had to do so in an era of nuclear weapons.