China accuses Japan of threatening Pacific peace with military law

Let's just how dangerous China, I mean Japan really is?  Did Japan create a military exclusion zone in territories claimed by China? No, but China did when they claimed ownership of the Senkaku islands which have been part of Japan since 1898.  Did Japan claim it owned the whole of the East China sea or the Sea of Japan simply because their name is on it? No, of course not. China though created and claimed 90% of the South China sea when they issued their Dash 9 map in November of 2014.  Japan hasn't constructed artificial islands to further its territorial claims, but China has.  Who's threatening the peace in Asia? It certainly isn't  Japan.  That said when the Japanese Diet passed those security laws in September of last year even though public opinion was overwhelming against their passage which included large demonstrations.  


Claims follows passing of law allowing Japanese troops to fight on foreign soil for first time since end of second world war

China has accused Japan’s “warlord” prime minister, Shinzo Abe, of threatening peace in the region, following the enactment on Tuesday of controversial laws allowing Japanese troops to fight on foreign soil for the first time since the end of the second world war.

The security laws, which were passed last September after chaotic scenes in parliament, reinterpret the country’s pacifist constitution to enable Japan to exercise collective self-defence – or coming to the aid of the US and other allies – in overseas conflicts.

In an online commentary, the state-run Xinhua news agency accused Abe of abandoning Japan’s postwar constitution, which limits the military to a purely defensive role, saying the move would “only serve to endanger the Japanese public’s right to live in peace”.

Japan's new era of activism

Five years after Japan’s nuclear disaster, a new wave of political activism is trending.


A “Hydrangea Revolution” bloomed after Japan’s 2011 nuclear disaster, fueled by frustration with government secrecy and collusion with big business. Since then, young Japanese have tried to establish a new political culture, but are their efforts to normalize dissent making a political difference or just setting a new fashion trend? As the disaster’s March 11 anniversary approaches

Editorial: Diet distorts Constitution by passing security bills into law

Mainichi Shinbun

The Diet's enactment of the security-related legislation, opening the way for Japan to exercise the right to collective self-defense, has raised serious questions about the fate of Japan's democratic politics. Numerous members of the public, including those who staged demonstrations against the legislation in front of the Diet building and elsewhere, undoubtedly have questions over the legislation, feel angry and are worried about the laws.

The House of Councillors passed the bills, which will drastically change Japan's basic national policy that the country has nurtured since the end of World War II, into law at a plenary session without addressing numerous questions and inconsistencies.

With the enactment of the legislation, Japan can exercise the right to collective self-defense, and the overseas activities of the Self-Defense Forces (SDF) will be drastically expanded.

Ruling coalition legislators, who belong to the legislative branch of the government, would not listen to the opinions of constitutional scholars and other experts who raised suspicions that the legislation violates the Constitution, which is the country's supreme law.

Editorial: We strongly oppose passage of government-backed security bills

September 16, 2015 (Mainichi Japan)

#StandWithAhmed

Does Prime Minister Shinzo Abe think he's a prophet? "The public's understanding and support toward the security bills will undoubtedly spread after the bills are enacted and time passes," he told the House of Councillors special committee on special legislation on Sept. 14.

Saying that "people will understand in time" while having provided no convincing counterarguments to the many objections that have been voiced against the bills demonstrates the great extent to which Abe, full of conceit, belittles the public.

The objections toward the bills are not temporary, nor are they purely emotional. They are based on the real fear of the possibility that common sense will be distorted and Japan's accomplishments over the years as a peaceful nation will be sabotaged.

Japan's national security policy is the result of a delicate balancing act between war-renouncing Article 9 of the Constitution and the Japan-U.S. security treaty. It has comprised the solid backbone of post-World War II Japan, born from a coexistence of deep remorse for a reckless war and the realistic need to protect the country.

Huge Protest Against Shinzo Abe's War Legislation

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe believed that the Japanese people would just accept his move to allow the Japanese Self Defense Force to operate overseas without a whimper.  He thought complacency was his friend.  Of course he was completely wrong.

Tens of thousands of protesters gathered near Japan's parliament building on Sunday to oppose legislation allowing the military to fight overseas, the latest sign of public mistrust in Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's security policy.   

In one of Japan's biggest protests in years - organizers put the crowd at 120,000 - people of all ages braved occasional rain to join the rally, chanting and holding up placards with slogans such as "No War" and "Abe, quit".

Demonstrators swarmed into the street before parliament's main gate after the crowd size made it impossible for police, out in heavy numbers, to keep them to the sidewalks. A second nearby park area also filled with protesters.

The rally was one of more than 300 this weekend in Japan protesting Abe's move to loosen the post-war, pacifist constitution's constraints on the military. 

Kobe air raid survivor in letter to PM Abe: 'You really have no idea what war is'

"Do people in elite positions not understand the sadness felt by average people who have suffered during times of war?"
Kobe resident Asako Zaii, 87, has found that her feelings regarding the security legislation passed by the Lower House on the afternoon of July 16 are almost unbearable.
"Mr. Abe, you really have no idea what war is, do you?" her letter asked pointedly.
Zaii's history -- what she refers to as her "real experience with war" -- involved relentless bombing during U.S. military air raids in March 1945, which instantaneously turned the city streets of Kobe into a sea of fire.
She was 17 years old at the time. Wrapping herself in a futon for protection against the fist-sized sparks of fire flying all around her, she ran to seek safety.
Her house, which was located near a new district in Kobe's busiest area, burned down -- reducing to ashes the chest of goods that her parents had prepared for her to take with her when she left home to marry.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry testifying before Congress about his time in Vietnam:

When he came home, he protested against the war, and in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1971, famously asked: "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?"