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Japanese to take more aggressive anti-piratical stance?

By: Moe Lane (Diary)  |  April 23rd, 2009 at 09:38 AM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

Step by step – sometimes almost painfully so – the Japanese are getting themselves back into the game:

Japan’s MPs back anti-piracy bill

The lower house of Japan’s parliament has approved a bill to allow the country’s naval ships to take a bigger role in fighting pirates off Somalia.

The bill will mean the navy can escort non-Japanese ships and use weapons for more than just self-defence purposes.

[snip]

Although the bill is likely to be rejected by the upper house, the government can still turn it into law.

Apparently the way that works is that the government, if it wants to, can have the bill reintroduced into the lower house of the Japanese parliament – which would then presumably pass it again.

This government almost certainly wants to; current Prime Minister Taro Aso has been quietly but firmly continuing the military… readjustments… done by his predecessor Shinzo Abe. That includes things like the first light aircraft carrier helicopter-carrying destroyer that just got delivered to the Imperial Japanese Navy Maritime Self-Defense Force (a comparison of the JMSDF Hyuga and HMS Invincible should prove instructive, especially when you consider that retrofitting the ramp from the latter onto the former doesn’t look impossibly difficult). I’m going to speculate that the current Japanese government is looking to expand its role in the pirate-hunting business in order to further acclimate its citizens to the idea that there are appropriate times for Japan to engage in power projection. These days, it’s the Japanese citizenry itself that probably have the most relevant objections to the idea – although the Chinese and both Koreas might contest that. Then again, given that the USA would like the Japanese to be able to front a force that can help keep two of those three countries in check, I find that I can bear up under the disapproval of quasi-Communists with some fortitude.

Besides, we actually could use the help on anti-piracy patrols. It’s not like we get paid to be the world’s policemen.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

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COMMENTS

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  • Achance

    they don’t have to go to the Horn of Africa. The waters off China and the narrow passages of Southeast Asia have a lot of piracy. We just don’t hear as much about it.

  • LibRick

    for addressing their own economic interests and attempting to do something about it. I hope they succeed in legislation.

    The U.S. can’t police the world’s oceans alone and nor should we. A lot of people don’t realize that our U.S. Navy and our Navy Seals are a scarce and precious commodity. They are Supermen but can’t be everywhere to save the day.

    I’m waiting for a bold statement of U.S. policy on this issue.. tick, tick, tick….

  • mikefisk

    The reasoning behind the different houses of Japanese parliament is that while the Prime Minister and the lower house are of the center-right Liberal Democratic Party, the upper house is controlled by the center-left Democratic Party of Japan, which has trended more leftwards in recent decades by absorbing the failed husks of the former Communist and Socialist parties.

    If they can get this through without the upper house’s approval, that may cause some interesting fireworks in Japanese politics… we’ll see what happens when it comes to that point, and especially what might happen in the lower house (as LDP’s coalition partner Komeito tends to not be so prolix about projecting force).

  • Dan McLaughlin

    nt

  • Elizabeth

    Please remember that all of this is taking place in the context of a nation with a constitution that expressly renounces “war as a sovereign right of the nation” and forbids the maintenance of “land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential”.

    In other words, this is not simply an issue of the Japanese people not being willing to pull their fair share of the weight in providing for their own defense. They have to walk a very fine line to stay within the bounds of their own constitution as it was adopted after World War II or they have to go through the wrenching public debate that would be necessary to change their constitution.

    While a number Japanese Supreme Court decisions have upheld the constitutionality of the Japanese maintaining defense forces, the projection of force outside of Japan has been a much more contentious issue. The bill, cited above, proposing the use of force “for more than just self-defence purposes” would definitely fall in the latter category.

  • mikefisk

    Keep in mind which language the Japanese constitution was written in, and the reasons behind it.

    Article 9 was our idea, not theirs.

  • Elizabeth

    At one time I was fairly well versed in Japanese history and I, too, understood that Article 9 was insisted upon by the U.S. The Wikipedia entry I linked to above suggests that there’s some debate about that now. I’m loathe to trust Wikipedia on anything remotely resembling a political issue, so I’d have to do more detailed reading elsewhere to know anything more.

    Anyway, my initial comment wasn’t meant to express an opinion about anything, merely to inform people that might not be aware of the constitutional constraint on the Japanese military.

  • gekster