Rightward March…
No surprise that Shinzo Abe, who seeks to uplift a depressed and discomfited Japan with a stronger military, a new, warfighting Constitution, and stirring calls for more patriotism and “national pride” took enough first-round votes in the LDP election to be selected as Japan’s next Prime Minister today. He will replace Junichiro Koizumi without having really told the Japanese people much about what he stands for.
The possibility that alienation and distress among the nation’s young can be easily fused with the form of virulent nationalism just below the surface in contemporary Japan…has to bring pause to many of us.
I had dinner last evening with two close friends from Japan, both University professors. Even before Abe’s selection, they expressed deep fears that their students are embracing nationalism, and that Japan will move aggressively to the Right, throw out Article Nine of the Constitution and rather quickly, with the quiet support of Washington, seek to become a more muscular presence around Asia.
This suggests a huge battle may soon loom… between the multinational business interests of Japan (like Keidanren) who seek rapprochement with China and a cooling of the divisive rhetoric of nationalism…and the political leaders who want to revive a “strong and patriotic” Japan, raise the Hinomaru flag and instill a “fighting spirit” in the young…
Why do I worry that this does not bode well for the “Pacific” century??