Japan’s rightward shift dampens prospects of regional cooperation

Japan’s rightward political shift is exacerbating historical enmities harbored against it by South Korea and China, further dampening the prospects of regional security and economic cooperation.

This week, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe made a series of nationalist remarks that apparently denied his country’s colonial invasion of the Korean Peninsula and repeated a claim to Dokdo.

On the back of more than 70 percent public support buoyed by his economic stimulus policy, the security hawk told a parliamentary session Tuesday that there was “no clear definition of an invasion internationally and academically,” inviting virulent criticism from South Korea and China.

On the same day, during a forum over territorial sovereignty, Abe stressed, “It is crucial to squarely instill Japan’s position and thoughts (about territorial rows) in the international community.”

As if to highlight the country’s refusal to atone for its past militarism, a group of 168 Japanese lawmakers ― the most in recent memory ― visited the Yasukuni Shrine Tuesday that enshrines its top war criminals.

On Wednesday, Abe defended his Cabinet members’ visit to the shrine, saying they had the “freedom not to yield to any kind of threats.”

“It is natural (for them) to express their respect and thoughts to worship the spirits of those who devoted their precious lives to the nation,” he said in his answer to a parliamentary committee.

Observers said ultra-conservative politicians that hold key cabinet posts in the Tokyo government would continue nationalist moves ahead of the upper-house elections slated for July.

Abe’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party, which holds a majority in the lower house of the Diet, has sought a big presence in the upper house for a mandate to revise the pacifist constitution and push other diplomatically sensitive policies.

“The so-called ‘Abenomics’ economic policy has helped weaken the yen and started to yield some signs of economic revitalization, and the chances of an electoral win in July are quite high. All these have apparently emboldened the Abe government,” said Kim Soung-chul, a senior fellow at the Sejong Institute local think tank.

“Based on this confidence, the LDP right-wingers have started to raise their voices as to their policy priorities such as seeking to make Japan a ‘normal’ country with a full-fledged military and, for the long-term, to turn the country into a military power.”

During its election campaign late last year, the LDP announced its party platform “to recover Japan and rebuild its economy.”

Seeking to strengthen its military and national pride, the election pledges included elevating the status of the Self Defense Forces to a national military; setting up a national security council to handle territorial disputes; and seeking the right to collective self-defense ― the use of force to respond to an attack on an ally, namely the U.S.

South Korea and China, which both experienced Japan’s wartime atrocities, responded angrily to Tokyo’s policy agenda for being reminiscent of Japan’s past imperialism.

“Those who repent for their country’s past militarism think of diplomatic relations with neighboring states as very crucial while those who are engrossed in domestic politics do not care much about external relations. (The Abe government) appears to be the latter,” said Kim Ho-sup, a politics professor at Chung-Ang University.

“If they disregard the importance of diplomatic ties, Japan can’t be an Asian leader. As witnessed during its wartime invasions, Japanese people would be the greatest victims of the Tokyo policy.”

Yun Duk-min, a professor at the Korea National Diplomatic Academy, pointed out that Japanese politicians of post-war generations including Abe seemed to be leaning toward a more nationalist and ideological policy agenda as they did not directly experience the wartime brutality.

“Post-war generations appear to be more nationalist and ideologically skewed. On top of that, as support ratings for the conservative government are high, they seem to spew out those (nationalist) remarks with little hesitation,” he said.

“But what we should be clear about is that the public support for them is not for the nationalist agenda, but for the Abe’s policy that seems to give some vitality into the economy. The public displeasure over the former Democratic Party of Japan government’s policy failure also contributed to the high approval ratings.”

Japan’s rightward shift has continued as politicians struggle to revive the country’s national pride, undermined by a series of natural disasters, a prolonged economic malaise and the rise of neighboring states such as China and South Korea.

But such nationalist moves could pose a headache for the U.S. which has sought to use its allies of Japan and South Korea to keep a rising China in check and deter an increasingly provocative North Korea, experts said.

Seoul’s Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se canceled his trip to Japan due to the visit by Japanese lawmakers to the war shrine. President Park Geun-hye has sought to restore trust with Japan, but it would be difficult to gain momentum for the trust building efforts for the time being, observers said.

Some argued, however, that given the geostrategic importance of Japan, and Seoul’s moves to deepen economic and political ties with Beijing, Washington might continue to cherish and seek to bolster the U.S.-Japan alliance.

By Song Sang-ho (sshluck@heraldcorp.com)