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That being said his historical revisionism seems like a damn shame. I personally didn't know about that. However, I don't take all of the claims made by Jacobin

That being said his historical revisionism seems like a damn shame. I personally didn't know about that. However, I don't take all of the claims made by Jacobin seriously. Even here it tries to paint Japan trying to create it's own army as a bad thing when it is clearly in response to territorial aggressiveness from China.

bobthepanda 4y ago
He did start a trade war with South Korea over the whole comfort women issue, when the countries had started off being closer allies. https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/09/04/shinzo-abe-japan-south-korea-war-nationalism/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/09/04/shinzo-abe-japan-south-... > All of this drove South Korea-Japan relations to the brink, and then Abe’s most egregious misstep marched the relationship off the cliff.All of this drove South Korea-Japan relations to the brink, and then Abe’s most egregious misstep marched the relationship off the cliff. In order to settle the historical score, he weaponized the two countries’ trade relationship. In October 2018, South Korea’s Supreme Court issued the long-delayed opinion that Japanese corporations that used slave labor from Korea during World War II must pay reparations to surviving slave laborers. (The delay was in part because since 2013, Japan’s foreign ministry had been issuing barely disguised threats for the South Korean government to “respond appropriately” to the pending case, and the quasi-authoritarian Park Geun-hye government acquiesced and pressured the Supreme Court to delay the ruling in contravention of the most basic principles of separation of powers.) In response to the court’s opinion—which ordered the reparation of $89,000, a negligible amount for Japan’s largest corporations—Abe declared a trade war. The Abe administration announced export control against South Korea for three critical chemicals used in high-end display and semiconductor manufacturing, immediately after the G-20 summit in Osaka, Japan, in which the prime minister called for a free and fair trade. When confronted with the criticism that Japan was using trade for political purposes, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga (the front-runner to be the next prime minister) vaguely cited national security concerns as the reason for the export control, even as he dangled the idea that South Korea “did not offer a satisfactory solution over the issue of former workers.” So flimsy was the justification that some experts observing the issue noted that Japanese officials “haven’t provided any evidence” and “have not named companies or said how supplies may have been mismanaged.” Others went further, calling Tokyo’s excuse “duplicitous” and saying it was behaving “spuriously.”
rtpg 4y ago
The SDF already exists and is huge. There is already a huge amount of American military across the country as well. The constitution does not prevent defensive measures and it is doable. What isn’t doable or is very tricky is things like Japan joining an allied nation in a fight in another place (for example it could not participate in Afghanistan or Iraq). Abe pushed for the idea of collective defense to allow for the govt to send in forces for those kinds of actions. Japan can defend itself against China all it wants, but the current legal idea is it can’t actively participate in conflicts where it’s not directly involved. This is the thing Abe wanted to change, and is an unpopular idea in Japan.
dirtyid 4y ago
> it is clearly in response to territorial aggressiveness from China Abe's been trying to re-militarize JP since his first term in mid 2000s, long before PRC military modernization began. You suggest he's precient, but history + his associations/controversies suggest a revisionist national hawk who loves his war criminals that understands Japan has territorial issues with everyone of her maritime neighbours and needs a proper non-pacifist military for "self-defense". No one in the west seems like to discuss that Japan, a loser of WW2 who should have her territories prescribed via treaty, has shown zero ability to address any of her linger disputes, including SCS tier EEZ drama (Okinotorishima). At end of day, it's within JP self interest to re-militarize, but let's not pretend Abe/LDP's questionable attachment to revisionsm aren't responsible for causing much of the maritime drama in the region.
- morninglight 4y ago
  Perhaps he was influenced by his grandfather. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobusuke_Kishi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobusuke_Kishi .
fomine3 4y ago
China, Russia, and North Korea. All three have nukes and untrustable.

bobthepanda 4y ago

He did start a trade war with South Korea over the whole comfort women issue, when the countries had started off being closer allies. https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/09/04/shinzo-abe-japan-south-korea-war-nationalism/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/09/04/shinzo-abe-japan-south-... > All of this drove South Korea-Japan relations to the brink, and then Abe’s most egregious misstep marched the relationship off the cliff.All of this drove South Korea-Japan relations to the brink, and then Abe’s most egregious misstep marched the relationship off the cliff. In order to settle the historical score, he weaponized the two countries’ trade relationship. In October 2018, South Korea’s Supreme Court issued the long-delayed opinion that Japanese corporations that used slave labor from Korea during World War II must pay reparations to surviving slave laborers. (The delay was in part because since 2013, Japan’s foreign ministry had been issuing barely disguised threats for the South Korean government to “respond appropriately” to the pending case, and the quasi-authoritarian Park Geun-hye government acquiesced and pressured the Supreme Court to delay the ruling in contravention of the most basic principles of separation of powers.) In response to the court’s opinion—which ordered the reparation of $89,000, a negligible amount for Japan’s largest corporations—Abe declared a trade war. The Abe administration announced export control against South Korea for three critical chemicals used in high-end display and semiconductor manufacturing, immediately after the G-20 summit in Osaka, Japan, in which the prime minister called for a free and fair trade. When confronted with the criticism that Japan was using trade for political purposes, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga (the front-runner to be the next prime minister) vaguely cited national security concerns as the reason for the export control, even as he dangled the idea that South Korea “did not offer a satisfactory solution over the issue of former workers.” So flimsy was the justification that some experts observing the issue noted that Japanese officials “haven’t provided any evidence” and “have not named companies or said how supplies may have been mismanaged.” Others went further, calling Tokyo’s excuse “duplicitous” and saying it was behaving “spuriously.”

rtpg 4y ago

The SDF already exists and is huge. There is already a huge amount of American military across the country as well. The constitution does not prevent defensive measures and it is doable. What isn’t doable or is very tricky is things like Japan joining an allied nation in a fight in another place (for example it could not participate in Afghanistan or Iraq). Abe pushed for the idea of collective defense to allow for the govt to send in forces for those kinds of actions. Japan can defend itself against China all it wants, but the current legal idea is it can’t actively participate in conflicts where it’s not directly involved. This is the thing Abe wanted to change, and is an unpopular idea in Japan.

dirtyid 4y ago

> it is clearly in response to territorial aggressiveness from China Abe's been trying to re-militarize JP since his first term in mid 2000s, long before PRC military modernization began. You suggest he's precient, but history + his associations/controversies suggest a revisionist national hawk who loves his war criminals that understands Japan has territorial issues with everyone of her maritime neighbours and needs a proper non-pacifist military for "self-defense". No one in the west seems like to discuss that Japan, a loser of WW2 who should have her territories prescribed via treaty, has shown zero ability to address any of her linger disputes, including SCS tier EEZ drama (Okinotorishima). At end of day, it's within JP self interest to re-militarize, but let's not pretend Abe/LDP's questionable attachment to revisionsm aren't responsible for causing much of the maritime drama in the region.

morninglight 4y ago
Perhaps he was influenced by his grandfather. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobusuke_Kishi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobusuke_Kishi .

fomine3 4y ago

China, Russia, and North Korea. All three have nukes and untrustable.