Press Action ::: Japanese Imperialists with a Brand New Bag

Tuesday, January 04, 2005

Japanese Imperialists with a Brand New Bag

By Reza Fiyouzat

(A different and longer version of this article will appear in Covert Action Quarterly #79.)

The year 2004 was an extraordinary year for the Japanese. Exciting times were had by many among the Japanese people and most especially by those in the stratospheres occupied by the ruling class, gallantly trotting along newly opened imperial paths; this time around, with all the properly called-for culture industry trappings to boot.

Starting with Ichiro, the Japanese famed batter for the Seattle Mariners broke George Sisler’s 84-year old MLB record of most hits in a season. Matsui the Godzilla did not do too bad either for the Yankees. Godzilla the movie monster grabbed a few headlines of his own; he got his Hollywood star of fame and retired after his latest release this year, on his 50th anniversary. As such, this marks the maturation of a process of Japanese cultural iconographic arrival on the Hollywood scene; from The Last Samurai, to the manga imagery quoted in Tarantino’s Kill Bill, to Hollywood’s adaptations, The Ring and The Grudge, of Japanese horror movies. (1)

The Japanese inventor of Karaoke machine too got a not-so-genius prize handed him by those mostly pasty-faced, with-self-happy children of the ideological executives of the US ruling classes attending Harvard University.

And let us not forget the newest Asian face in the NBA: the Phoenix Suns’ Yuta Tabuse; the first ever Japanese basketball player invited to play in the biggest league on the planet in the game of basketball; historically a place for the tallest mostly.

The year was slightly strange too. Starting with the national sport, Sumo, the year 2004 will go down in history as one of total domination by Mongolian wrestlers, without a single dominant Japanese Sumo wrestler in sight.

Also, Crown-Princess Masako, a former commoner, the wife of the next-in-line heir to the Chrysanthemum Throne, unable to answer the divine call of producing a male heir (already aged 41, her only previous successful successor-production attempt brought them the joys of a child girl) and unable to deal with the rigidities of the imperial family lifestyle, was struck by a stress level so high she had to resign from all public duties for most of the year, making her public re-appearance only at the Emperor’s Birthday’s ceremonies, on December 23.

Strange weather, too; a record number of typhoons hit the rising sun land this year. As a result of the record number of typhoons, there has also been a record number of “incursions” by wild bears into human communities looking for food, due to the fact that the typhoons had washed away their food supplies.

Also among the bad news, an increasing number of group suicides, and a nuclear accident which occurred on August 8, on the 59th anniversary of the nuclear bombing of Nagasaki by the US.

As well, a big earthquake hit Niigata prefecture, just before 6 p.m. on October 23; one that sent off rail, for the first time ever, a Shinkansen train (super-express bullet train). The Japan Times of October 27, 2004 reported, “Unable to find space in public shelters or fearful of aftershocks, many people in quake-hit central Japan are taking refuge in their cars.” Reports kept coming for days after the earthquake of people especially the elderly dying in their cars as they sought shelter from the cold; due to lack of mobility allowing the onset of deep vain thrombosis.

While these elderly innocents spent their last days and hours in their cars, trying to keep warm by running the engine and the heater, wondering when help would arrive, or, alternatively, when they would run out of gas and suffer a long freeze to death, the Japanese Maritime Self Defense Forces were spending millions of dollars and tens of thousands of manpower-hours worth of rescue effort on the seas to the south of Tokyo Bay, practicing war maneuvers and war games along with the US Navy and an assorted other naval fleets playing “spot the nuclear cargo.” (2)

On the purely political front, this year saw a stealth rewriting of the constitution, Article 9 of which prohibits Japan from participating in aggressive wars. With the necessary technicalities inserted, the Japanese government may now participate in wars, aggressive or not, regardless of Article 9’s clear instructions. (3) This year also saw the passage of a set of bills, the third Emergency Legislation, a set of laws akin to the PATRIOT Act, which were originally billed as legislation needed to deal with cases of natural disasters, as well as cases of national security emergencies, such as a war or a terrorist attack, or an assessed possibility of such an attack. Under this legislation, the government can suspend any of numerous individual and civil rights, in order to “better protect the public.” Such includes possible suspension of property rights of individuals and companies; suspension of labor rights, particularly the right to refuse work, overtime work, or the right to challenge work conditions; as well as rights of assembly and protest. So, in effect, if the government, deeming the conditions ripe, wishes to declare the country under the threat of an imminent attack and organize the citizenry into unpaid work gangs, it now has the legal system to do so, imminent threat or not.

It has also been a year of Japanese hostages in the Iraqi theaters of war, one of whom, Mr. Koda, was killed by his captors, due to Japan’s participation in the US’s and the UK’s illegal invasion of Iraq; a participation in the quietest of fashions.

The dispatch of the Self Defense Forces to Iraq was accomplished by the most ingenious of methods, by declaring it to the Japanese public as a “humanitarian mission”; a mission to rebuild Iraq. In reality, however, the public appearances of the Japanese Ground Self Defense Forces, all 550 of them, in the town of Samawa, about 260 kilometers south of Baghdad, has apparently been so few and far in between, that their shiny clean vehicles that do occasionally leave their well guarded camp, do not look too impressive to the local, extremely impoverished Iraqis, whose local tribal leaders must have been promised heaven and earth to give safe haven to the Japanese forces, and for which protection they have received very tiny little they themselves could not have achieved with their own resources.

According to Mainichi Shimbun of Dec. 4, 2004, “Leith Hassan, a staff writer of the Al Samawa newspaper, said Samawa residents had believed a computer would be provided to each of the households, that new buildings would be constructed and that numerous jobs would be created after the SDF deployment. ‘However, the SDF troops have done only simple things such as supplying clothes to poor people and repainting school walls. The unemployment rate in the city probably remains over 50 percent. Residents are disillusioned by the SDF,’ Hassan said. ‘The popularity of the SDF has declined.’”

Meanwhile, Japan is playing a very active role behind the scenes, supporting and oiling the wheels of the war machine to the best of her diplomatic, financial and logistical ability. For example, Japan has provided free fuel to the US fleets involved in the theaters of war in Afghanistan and Iraq, for at least until this writing, and will most likely keep on doing so, for as long as the Koizumi government can get away with it vis-à-vis the “public opinion,” i.e., the taxpayers who are footing the bill. According to The Japan Times of October 2, 2004, , “Some within the ruling Liberal Democratic Party have said Japan should charge for the fuel because the revised bilateral Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreement that took effect in late July allows for supplies and goods to be exchanged for money.” The paper said, however, that, “Japan intends to continue providing free fuel to U.S. warships in the Arabian Sea, despite [the] pact that allows it to charge fees, according to government sources.”

When push comes to shove, policy makers and their advisers, or their academic allies would, in semi-private/semi-public lectures, point to the enormous debt owed by Iraqi government to the Japanese government and banks as the bottom-line reason why Japan has to participate so diligently in this illegal war of aggression against the people of Iraq. Should the Japanese government not lend its symbolic and financial as well as logistic support to its ally and friend, in this time of need, not only will the US be less likely to look out for Japan’s interests in general, but will also not cooperate on a range of issues essential to Japan, most urgent among which is the North Korean supposed nuclear threat.

Yasukuni Shrine Rearmed

According to an editorial by the left-of-center newspaper, Asahi Shimbun, “A fighter of the [Imperial] Japanese navy is on display on the first floor of the Yushukan war memorial museum at Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo. It is a Mitsubishi Zero-type shipboard fighter model 52, one of the Zero fighters. The plane can also be viewed from the outside through a glass wall,” (The Asahi Shimbun, December 6, 2004).

The editorial goes on to quote the explanation that accompanies the display, which reads: Its first campaign was in September in the 15th year of Showa (1940). In an air battle against Soviet-made Chinese war planes in Chongqing, China, it shot down most of the enemy planes with no damage on the Japanese side in an unprecedented victory. With its great combat capability and long flying range, it was the world’s strongest fighter.

In case one is not familiar with the history of the Yasukuni shrine in Tokyo, this is the place where, along with the remains of 2.5 million Japanese soldiers of various wars, are buried the remains of Class A war criminals who were convicted in the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunals, and executed subsequently. It is also the shrine in the center of a big international controversy, since the current Japanese Prime Minister, Junichiro Koizumi, has developed a liking for visiting the shrine in official capacity, on a regular basis; something the Korean and the Chinese leaders have not taken to kindly. (4)

One may venture to throw caution to the wind and suggest that the display of the Zero Fighters in the Yasukuni shrine could well be a tit for the tat of the US’s fully-restored display of Enola Gay in the Smithsonian; or else, a two-step dance of like-minded fellows?

Who Wants War?

The fundamental and perpetual contradiction of today’s capitalist powerhouses remains overcapacity and excess capital, hence the everlasting need for new markets. As such, latter day imperialists are forever like blind men walking in a tornado, whirling about groping for more markets, and yearning for monopolistic positions to secure a safe rest place. Japanese imperialists are no exception. Eventually, hard limits are reached, and a way deemed possible for opening up new markets will be declared to require war. And where more convenient to invade than a nearby neighbor? One, such as North Korea, for example, so underdeveloped that it surely must be thirsting after some good old fashion capital injection.

As the drumbeats of war grow louder and more out of control, disturbing news headlines are becoming more frequent in Japan. One such news declared major establishment figures wishing to change the war-renouncing Article 9 of Japan’s constitution. “Former Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone has unveiled proposals for revising the Constitution to pave the way for recognizing the establishment of defense forces,” (The Daily Yomiuri, November 15, 2004). It was equally disturbing when Colin Powell announced, back in August, that Article 9 was a hurdle for Japan’s effort to gain a permanent seat on the UN Security Council (The Japan Times, August 14, 2004).

It was also learned that military advisors were helping with the redrafting of the constitution. “A senior Self-Defense Force (SDF) officer has drafted plans on revisions to clauses in the Constitution on security arrangement at the request of a ruling party politician,” (Mainichi Daily News, December 6, 2004). Objections from less hawkish members of parliament stopped this egregious move, but the episode shows a clear trend.

Also, Japan on Thursday, December 16, 2004 announced that it would grant visas to a former president of Taiwan; as if to make sure the tensions with China remain at a steady state. As if to help fuel the flames of tension across the Taiwan Strait, on December 19, it was reported that, “In a reversal of its long-standing policy, the United States will post military officers to its mission in Taipei for the first time since 1979, leading defense journal Jane’s Defense Weekly says.”

Most importantly, a set of bills will soon be introduced for vote in the parliament, part of which asks for permitting, for the first time since World War II, commercial exportation of military goods.

As reported by The Economist, Japan’s new National Defense Program Outline, stipulates a different, lighter, faster moving, more high-tech military, one that makes it possible for Japanese troops to, “deploy overseas more quickly, along with weapons and equipment that will help [them] defend themselves better and operate more flexibly,” (The Economist, December 4-10, 2004, p. 28-29).

If this sounds similar to pronouncements made by President Bush as he has elaborated elements of the US’s new military doctrine currently pursued, it is because the (Pacific-based sections of) the US Armed Forces and their Japanese counterparts do form a unified contingent. This is true both in terms of how the existing defense treaties orients and obligate the two, and logistically. A modern military, much like the Napoleonic times, is mostly an organism of maintenance, while only a portion takes the brunt of the daily killing and dying. In this large and highly complex organism, Japan can perform any number of logistical and maintenance functions, without resembling an outright rapist.

The Economist also reported that in this new military Outline, Japan plans to concentrate more expenditure for a missile defense system in cooperation with the US, and, “defense contractors such as Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries, are itching to expand co-operation in other military areas.” The article also reports that, “Japanese defense experts are urging the government to mention its neighbor [China] in the new defense outlines.”

The Japanese government subsequently did exactly that. “China and North Korea are [now] identified in the review as key threats to Japan’s national security,” reported The Japan Times on December 11, 2004. And, as explained recently by Gregory Elich (Counterpunch, November 30, 2004), “The recent appointment of Victor Cha as Asia Director in the National Security Council portends a more aggressive approach towards North Korea during President Bush’s second term.”

This year, finally, was a very sad year for historians of Japan in particular, and historians of truth in general. For those historians with a conscience, that is. This year saw a big loss in the ranks of those who bear witness; of those who do not look away, who do not dare keep silent, who forget neither the faces nor the meanings of the lives lost needlessly and cruelly.

The news came on November 11 that, Iris Chang, perhaps the most passionate chronicler of The Rape of Nanking, that most delicate of historians dead or alive, succumbed and took her own life on November 9. We lost a most dedicated friend of the truth: of what the living are capable of and yet must not be allowed to do.

We can only conjecture that a truthful soul can only stay helplessly stunned and astounded for just so long, when on every nightly news we see the people of Fallujah, Baghdad, Mosul, and Tikrit murdered, and houses invaded with zero regard for human dignity; when torture is not only legalized by outsourced; when entire towns and cities are incinerated daily with impunity; when hospitals are bombed and ambulances fired on, doctors and nurses prevented from healing the wounded, and the entire mainstream media from ABC to CNN to NPR not so much as batting an eye while reporting it; when 100,000 mostly children and women and elderly are openly murdered in just the last phase of this fourteen-year-old genocidal project; and all of this mostly reported, unlike the Rape of Nanking, which to this day continues to be hushed and kept silent by the Japanese government.

We can only conjecture that the shock and awe of repetitive history syndrome must not have been lost on such a keen student of the History of Rape.

1) For a very lively commentary with the most unique take on aspects of Japanese popular culture, see particularly Leila Matsui, on Dissident Voice (http://www.dissidentvoice.org).

2) The embarrassment seemed apparent among some newspapers; The Japan Times of October 27, gave the maritime military exercise a small headline inside the paper, in the National section, with the heading, “WMD interception drill staged in Sagami Bay.”

3) For an excellent account see, Remilitarizing Japan, by Gavan McCormack, New Left Review #29, Sep/Oct 2004.

4) The same editorial explains, “According to “Yasukuni Daihyakka” (Yasukuni encyclopedia), a pamphlet published by the shrine, war criminals are people ‘who were cruelly executed because they were falsely accused as “war criminals” in a one-sided tribunal held in form only at the hands of the Allied Forces (the United States, Britain, the Netherlands, China and others) that fought against Japan.’ The pamphlet refers to the executed war criminals as ‘Showa martyrs.’”

Reza Fiyouzat is an applied linguist and freelance writer living in Japan. Fiyouzat can be reached at rfiyouzat@yahoo.com.

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