LDP's new Constitution will widen SDF's role

[Eisuke]

LDP's new Constitution will widen SDF's role

By TETSUSHI KAJIMOTO
Staff writer
April 5, 2005

The Liberal Democratic Party on Monday unveiled a rough outline of its planned constitutional amendment, which says the Self-Defense Forces should be defined as a military tasked with defending Japan and joining international peacekeeping efforts.
The outline was mapped out by 10 subcommittees of an LDP panel for drafting a new Constitution.

The panel, headed by former Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori, will further try to iron out remaining differences within the party and put the finishing touches to the outline by month's end.

The LDP hopes to come up with a text draft of a new Constitution by the time the party celebrates the 50th anniversary of its founding in November.

But the LDP's proposal for partially rewriting the war-renouncing Article 9 is expected to fuel concern that it would end the Constitution's curbs on overseas force deployments.

The LDP will also have to rein in some of its right-leaning members because the party must work with its pacifist junior coalition partner, New Komeito, and the opposition Democratic Party of Japan to achieve a constitutional amendment.

Article 96 stipulates that amendments be initiated by the Diet through a concurring vote of two-thirds or more of all members in both chambers.

While retaining the principle of pacifism as stipulated by Clause 1 of Article 9, the outline says the Constitution should make it clear that Japan maintains a military for "self-defense" and should "make active efforts" to help keep the peace in international society.

This means Clause 2 of Article 9 might be revised from its current stipulation that "land, sea and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained."

The outline released Monday does not call for rewriting Clause 2.

The new Constitution must also stipulate civilian control of the SDF and the prime minister as supreme commander, according to the outline.

Issues to be further discussed include the possible establishment of a military tribunal to maintain discipline within the SDF and specific procedures for the government to declare a state of emergency.

The outline does not clearly say whether Japan should engage in collective defense with its allies. Currently, the government interprets the Constitution as banning this right.

Some members of the subcommittees proposed that the scope of SDF activities, including collective defense, be stipulated in fundamental laws on security and international cooperation that need to be enacted separately.

The outline also calls for a sweeping revision to the Constitution's preamble.

The new Constitution should declare that it was created "autonomously," whereas the current Constitution was drawn up when Japan was under U.S. Occupation following its defeat in World War II, the LDP said.

Under the outlines, the preamble would say the Japanese people should "love their country, which regards freedom, democracy, human rights and peace" as its fundamental principles, and should "steadfastly maintain its independence."

Chapter 1 of the new Constitution would define the Emperor as the symbol of the unity of Japan, although some LDP lawmakers advocated defining the Emperor as head of state, according to the outline.

http://www.japantimes.com/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20050405a2.htm


This rough outline is good in my opinion. I agree with some LDP lawmakers that the Emperor should be head of state.

 

[Hiroshi66]

Very good. The LDP is the party I support, and they did a good job on this. I agree with Eisuke-san, its good to see the emperor as a head of state!

 

[Shibuyaexpat]

Just out of curiosity, why is the LDP even called such? There is nothing "Liberal" or "Democratic" in their policies. Why don't they simply call them selves, LOIN: Lovers of Old Imperial Nippon?

 

[alexriversan]

Just out of curiosity, why is the LDP even called such? There is nothing "Liberal" or "Democratic" in their policies. Why don't they simply call them selves, LOIN: Lovers of Old Imperial Nippon?

what about INC imperial nippon corporation. just consume a few years scifi-timetrack, imagine the time around 1900 and the wars did not happened.

you get the point we would be in 2030 right now, without ideology developed in ENGLAND (BRITAIN, UNITED KINGDOM).

additional, you can read animal farm: to understand how history revolutes.
see wikipedia for "orwell" or "animal farm"

ALEX RIVER-SAN III
CONSOLE OPERATOR
IMPERIAL NIPPON CORPORATION

 

[Hiroshi66]

No idea. Why is the North Korean state called "People's Democratic Republic of Korea"? Sure isn't that.

 

[alexriversan]

well china is just the "people's republic", without emission about democracy. probably some sort of wishful bureaucratic thinking? (means they dream of "democracy", but have no idea how to realize it (in a way it suits their needs/ideals)

if you omit the enbraced sentence, it gets a wrong meaning, the additional sentence explains they have ideals/needs (realistic or not) but: no idea how to realize a democratic system.

the fact they label their system as "democratic" indicates they wish it would be that way- probably.

that's just an assumption- who knows the true intention? i dont.

--------------

not to say, "production quotes" of the so called "five-year plans" were often nothing else than "wishful thinking.

we west germans knew EVERYTHING about it, from the mad magazine and other capitalistic propaganda sources. and we knew the "GDR"* was not democratic at all, though their so called "functioneers" had vague ideas of their own way to implement a "potempkin democracy"- more or less.

well it is different from the emission, a government would be a regime or military dictature by declaration.

believe it or not: in the time from 1950 to 1990 germans had the fear the russians would invade their country.

*german democratic republic (east germany)

 

[Eisuke]

Here is info about political parties worldwide:

Political orientation

Originally parties belonged to two currents, the liberal and the conservative current. This bipolarization changed in the second half of the 19th century. Both in Europe and in Latin-America in many countries new parties were formed. One can see a split in the liberal current between moderates and radicals. More to the left social-democratic (socialist) parties were formed. Christian parties were also formed, being the ancestors of the 20th century christian-democratic parties. Nowadays there is a broad spectrum of political orientation. This makes it always difficult to to give the right political label to a party. Many parties use labels which cannot be used in an international or comparative context. For example the Japanese Liberal Democratic Party might be liberal in the Japanese sense of the word, it isn't liberal in the international sence of the word. Next to that there are parties which don't want to use labels. For instance: the Dutch party Democrats 66, which can be labeled as a social liberal party, doesn't use any label in the national political context.
In Elections around the world and Worldwide diretory of parties parties are labelled conform the following categorization. The labels used are based on a European context (simply because the editor is an European) and are a result of a personal impression based on news and literature. Parties can be listed in more than one category.

http://www.electionworld.org/party.htm

 

[Hiroshi66]

Good article, Eisuke. Very few parties today use names which are true to their ideologies.

 

[Shibuyaexpat]

Agreed. Good article. I didn't realize that. Thanks for the education.

 

[Hiroshi66]

I have also read that Prime Minister Koizumi supports the larger role for the emperor and also for installing Princess Aiko on the throne after Naruhito dies.