Is the Article 9 Crying or Laughing?
(Est-ce que la paix pleurer ou rire?)
Today (Monday) and tomorrow (Tuesday) Japan is still in a national holiday sequence.
(Yesterday, I saw some people who looked like an American mafia member, a Chinese prostitute and a Chinese mafia member, a US intelligence agent, and a Japanese female spy, but also an old noble Japanese woman in addition to some innocent European and American girls, in a famous shrine in Tokyo, according to my humble observation.)
Then at night, of course after humble work, I watched a news reporting show on TV where Ms. Yoshiko Sakurai, a notable female journalist, commenting on economic activities of certain local villages in China, since villagers are living on extracting valuable metals and other resources from abandoned home electronic appliances illegally imported from the U.S., Japan, and Korea in a quantity of almost a million.
Ms. Yoshiko Sakurai seems to become now a kind of Godmother for younger generation of Japanese lawmakers, though she predicts that popularity of the Japanese Prime Minister will further drop since he is going to welcome the Chinese President soon without any hope of diplomatic accomplishment except borrowing of Pandas from China.
Decades ago, when I first saw her in a late-night news reporting program, I was very much impressed with her intelligence and fairness in a manner.
But, she might not have heard songs, such as the one below, popular comedian Mr. Masaaki Sakai, who also took part in the TV program last night, was singing in late 1960’s, of course in Japan.
http://gw.jmd.ne.jp/real.asp?ShopCode=WR001&Pass=xsb91fub28&LinkCode=CL00068165&Track=13&ref=http://www.tsutaya.co.jp/item/music/jmdlog.zhtml?URL=CL00068165&TRACKNO=13&MEDIA_TYPE=1&STYPE=1&DISC_FLG=0&PROVIDER_CODE=000002&CCCSAKUHINCODE=20074909&CCCSYOUTANISAKUHINCODE=20074909013
(The setting sun is crying like my heart…)
SECTION I: JAPANESE CONSTITUTION
Existence and authority of any country is based on three indispensable elements: a sovereign right over its territory, a sovereign right over its economy, and a sovereign right over its defense.
Therefore, any constitution should be specified to extend and embody these three elements.
After WWII, General MacArthur tried to punish and humiliate Japan by writing and pressing a draft of the Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution on the Japanese Government who eventually adopted it almost as it was.
The Article 9 reads:
CHAPTER II. RENUNCIATION OF WAR
Article 9. Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes.
In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.
However, when interpreting and applying this Article, the above said three fundamental elements of a nation state should be observed and respected.
Therefore, Japanese military forces cannot be identified as land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential that are maintained for an aggressive war or a war of invasion as widely seen in the world during WWII.
In this context, the current Japanese military forces are different from military of any other countries; I mean that Japanese troops are one-rank higher in terms of status viewed from the ideal on peace of mankind.
The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized; but protecting Japan from military invasion by other country is of course a preferential element without which the sovereignty and independence of Japan will be lost and consequently the Japanese Constitutions will be abolished by occupying foreign forces.
(In this regard, the Article 9 must not be interpreted as a suicide clause which denies the ground of the Constitution itself, namely survival and endurance of the nation state Japan.)
Even if China tries to invade Japan and Japanese Self Defense Forces expels them from Japan’s territory, Japanese Self Defense Forces cannot land on mainland China in its counterattack operation, as it will turn to be a war from natural defense and thus it will be an exercise of the right of belligerency.
In other word, Japanese self defense forces cannot be regarded and cannot function as land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential the Japanese Government can use for a war (of invasion of the WWII type) but defense of the nation.
General MacArthur must have been laughing at Japan and the Japanese since the then Japanese Government and people some 60 years ago accepted this Article so submissively, like the Philippine people when they had been colonized by the U.S.; but nobody in the world is now laughing at Japan, since still some old soldiers remember the holy shrine in good and old days.
SECTION II: EXPORT OF WEAPONS
Having said so, Japan can of course abolish the Article 9 by national votes.
Then what would happen?
Presently, Japanese laws based on the Constitution forbid export of weapons from Japan to any countries.
If the Article 9 is abolished, Japanese manufacturers will surely start to develop advanced weapons and export them to the world, competing with others in the same trade in the U.S., the U.K., and France.
And, as seen in various industrial fields, Japanese defense businesses would most likely win the business competition in the global market.
Even Sony, Toyota, Panasonic, Hitachi, Canon, and so on would start to develop, design, and produce advanced and smart weapons which would be global best sellers.
I think such a situation must be avoided.
If Japan can earn easily $1 trillion with overseas sales of weapons, it should not do so.
That is why the Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution should be maintained; and thus the present Japanese Constitution should be maintained as a whole, since it stipulates that sovereignty resides with the people but not with the Emperor.
(Otherwise, who now living in the Japanese society contaminated by goods and capital could serve the Empire of Japan with the Imperial Constitution based on the samurai code of conducts?)
SECTION III: BRITISH ROYAL FAMILY
As the British Royal family is so much linked with defense business, it is not so holy at all.
Especially I am afraid that the British Royal family is losing respect amongst Arabs.
SECTION IV: FRENCH ELITES
It is said France has advanced industries only in the defense business, the nuclear power generation, and Train a Grande Vitesse (high-speed trains) all of which are directly managed by French elites rather than successful citizens.
The French Government recently lost a business chance worth $50 billion as the British Government successfully sold weapons to Saudi Arabia by leveraging a royal tie between the two countries.
So, I am afraid that the French elites are losing respect amongst Arabs.
http://www.amazon.co.jp/gp/product/images/410610251X/ref=dp_image_0?ie=UTF8&n=465392&s=books
Or do you expect that the Japanese Imperial Family and the Japanese elites will be in the near future engaged in arms sales globally like in some European countries and kingdoms?
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That is all for today.
But, there was an age that many Japanese youths felt like crying to the setting sun so red and large, while so many students were demonstrating in Paris and Washington D.C. in the Era of the Vietnam War and Israel-Arab armed conflicts.
(Now, I am busy today, too.
So, China white or correction fluid is sometimes useful in preparing a form or a kind of papers so timely.
Indeed, nowadays, we seldom use a pen to write anything, since a keyboard can be also convenient to type in Japanese letters into a computer file.
That is why you have to excuse any China white such as the one often seen or sensed in Chinese official statements, as a Panda recently died in a Tokyo zoo.)
Joh 5:5 And a certain man was there, which had an infirmity thirty and eight years.
Joh 5:6 When Jesus saw him lie, and knew that he had been now a long time in that case, he saith unto him, Wilt thou be made whole?
Joh 5:7 The impotent man answered him, Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool: but while I am coming, another steppeth down before me.
Joh 5:8 Jesus saith unto him, Rise, take up thy bed, and walk.
Joh 5:9 And immediately the man was made whole, and took up his bed, and walked: and on the same day was the sabbath.
Joh 5:10 The Jews therefore said unto him that was cured, It is the sabbath day: it is not lawful for thee to carry thy bed.