Japan Debates a New Role

...Subsequently laws were passed to legitimize a new military organization, called the Self-Defense Force (SDF...

...We are going to be participants, not bystanders, from now on...

...These include the introduction of cleanerburning power generators, more fuelefficient passenger cars and better home insulation, plus greater use of alternate energies, such as solar panels and cheaper liquid natural gas...

...In fact, we are already sending SDF people abroad," notes Atsuyuki Sassa, the former head of a special national security unit attached to the Prime Minister's office...

...military...

...The ratio was only 8.9 per cent in the early '80s...

...Thus the Japanese, who were already paying close to $3.20 a gallon, didn't complain a great deal when gas price increases finally came...

...Michael Berger, a previous contributor to the NL, is the Tokyo bureau chief of the San Francisco Chronicle...

...Although prices edged upward, there were no hikes at the gas pumps for nearly a month, thanks to strict government guidance...

...At the urging of American occupation authorities and Washington, a civilian Japanese security force was quickly approved...

...At the same time, the SDF was constantly being attacked, both by citizens who thought it violated Article 9 and by other Asian nations with keen memories of Japanese military aggression during the 1930s and '40s...

...Japanese Supreme Court interpretations have supported the existence of the SDF, but special laws prohibit the sending of military units abroad...

...She and other hostages were angry at their embassy for not coming to their assistance before they were moved from a Baghdad hotel to military installations outside Iraq's capital...

...The ironic backdrop to the emerging constitutional debate is that since World War II, whenever rearming has come up, it has been at America's bidding...

...Two stockpiles, one aclministered by the government and the other by private industry, could sustain public and industrial energy needs for 142 days even if all oil imports were cut off, according to the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI...

...They set three goals: 1) To develop as much energy supply security as possible for a nation that imports 99 per cent of its petroleum...

...But the most important factor in Japan's ability to cope with an oil squeeze has been the restructuring of its economy...

...and 3) to shift away from energy-intensive manufacturing...

...Under a Security Treaty signed in 1960, the SDF became part of the U.S...

...Concurrently, oil sources have been diversified...

...At one point supplies of toilet paper ran so low that there were scenes of desperate housewives storming into stores, elbowing each other aside in a grim scramble to lay their hands on a daily necessity...

...Though, a small minority, they are hoping the present controversy will result in a more independent Japan...

...Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, the two most stable Mideast Arab states, account for another 37.5 per cent...

...It is the Constitution and related restrictive laws that have made Japan "a bystander" in international politics...

...Some, like party Secretary General Ichiro Ozawa, have argued that SDF personnel can be shipped overseas without any changes in existing laws if the mission is for the peaceful purpose of protecting Japanese citizens...

...Indonesia, Mexico and China, minor suppliers prior to the '70s, now provide more than 20 per cent of the country's crude oil...

...FACING THE MIDEAST CRISIS Japan Debates a New Role By Michael Berger Tokyo When the first Japanese hostages returned home from Iraq early in September, this country experienced its first real shock since the Mideast crisis began...

...During the past 15 years it has reduced the reliance on energy-intensive industries by encouraging the production of capital-intensive goods and expanding information services...

...But nothing had brought the nation face-to-face with the ugly realities of the conflict until 70 Japanese, most of them women and children, arrived in Tokyo after a long flight from Baghdad via Amman...

...Still, the diplomat acknowledged the risk of giving indirect encouragement to extreme Right-wingers here...

...Even inside the ruling conservative Liberal Democratic Party, which generally has gone along with the U. S. on the military buildup, there are wide differences on this issue...

...2) to reduce the dependence on oil by improving energy-saving technologies...

...One woman, trying vainly to control her emotions, blurted out: "It made us feel so helpless, being caught up in international politics...

...By 1989 it had the third largest defense budget in the world...

...Then the shortfall turned into a windfall, as stepped-up shipments from Iran left Japanese brokers with enough crude to sell off to other Asian nations...

...But a veteran Western diplomat here believes the country has reached a watershed...

...Japan has been under pressure, especially from a U.S...

...On the political level, however, Japan is ill-equipped to respond quickly to a crisis like the one created by Iraq's President Saddam Hussein...

...For years, we have treated the Japanese as though they had some kind of psychotic disease because of their aggression in World War II," the diplomat said...

...missiles that the SDF uses...

...The ability to withstand the 1990 economic pinch stems from fundamental changes that policymakers here put into effect after the '70s...

...But in the summer of 1990, two days after Japan declared it would stop buying Iraqi and Kuwaiti oil, it was announced that stockpiles of crude would be sufficient to ensure a stable supply even if the embargo—affecting about 12 per cent of total oil imports—lasted for two years...

...Indeed, it is a measure of how far the Japanese have come since the initial oil shocks of the 1970s, which induced a panic that sometimes verged on the tragicomic...

...In the worst days of 1974, when Japan depended on the Mideast for close to 8 5 per cent of its oil supply, draconian measures were the norm...

...The treaty also has been interpreted as an American "cap" on the rebirth of an independent Japanese military...

...We have SDF officers in every major Japanese embassy around the world...

...Substantial advances have been made on the energy-saving front as well...

...And whereas in 1974 a 10 per cent hike in oil prices meant a 1 per cent increase in Japanese consumer prices, the same 10 per cent increase in oil prices at present means only a 0.1 per cent difference in consumer prices...

...A complex series of interministry turf battles, and of arguments with labor unions unwilling to lend themselves to aiding a potential war effort, brought all discussion of any action to a virtual standstill at one stage...

...government, Japan gradually built up its military power...

...Nevertheless, in the decades following the Korean War, again often at the prodding of the U.S...

...defense strategy against Soviet military forces in northeast Asia...

...The spreading awareness of that reality, and the increasingly heated debate about how much Japan can or should be involved in assisting the multinational forces, stand in sharp contrast to the relatively mildimpact of theGulf showdown on the economy...

...Today," notes economist Kenneth Courtis of the Deutsche Bank Group's office in Tokyo, "Japan produces 2.24 times as many goods for the same energy input as in 1973...

...A telephone poll of 1,000 people conducted by the Tokyo Broadcasting System early in September revealed that while 78 per cent of those who responded were opposed to sending combat troops to the Mideast, close to 60 per cent supported the dispatch of noncombat Japanese to the area...

...Still others want no restrictions at all...

...For months the gaudy neon lights of Tokyo's Ginza and other urban entertainment areas were dimmed, and power rationing forced many manufacturers to curtail production...

...Where all the conflicting views will lead Japan no one is certain...

...It is these laws, according to government officials, that must be altered if SDF personnel are to be deployed in crises like the present one...

...Although commitments were finally made, the basic questions that delayed them remain unresolved...

...Government bureaucrats worked without air conditioning through the intensely humid summer...

...But as one former government official put it: "No matter howthis crisis turnsout, itisamajor turning point for Japan...

...With the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950, Japan was suddenly seen as an invaluable logistical base for the U.S...

...Others want a clearly written new law that allows only noncombat SDF members to be sent out of the country...

...Then they'll become a full partner, and they'll have a strong argument for getting that UN Security Council seat they have been after for many years...

...Energy officials also made sure there would be no exploitation of consumers...

...It's time for Japan to share some of the risks as well as the costs of international peacekeeping...

...In addition, we have been sending SDF units to train with the Americans in military exercises in the Pacific since 1980, and every spring about 300 Japanese troops go to Arizona to learn how to operate U.S...

...occupation authorities, it will be recalled, redrafted major sections of that postwar document, including the famous Article 9 in which Japan "renounces military force as a means of settling international disputes...

...U.S...

...Moreover, through purchases of equity in refineries or producers, 13 per cent of Japan's oil comes from sources linked to Japanese interests, MITI estimates...

...Japan has built up a four- to fivemonth oil reserve in huge containers and old tankers anchored or secured offshore...

...government seeking greater support for the multinational forces in the Persian Gulf...

...With over 100 other Japanese hostages, mostly men, still in Iraqi hands at this writing, there is certain to be more anger and anguish here...

...At the top of the list is a once-taboo issue: Should Japan revise its so-called Peace Constitution...