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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 March 2025
As this 4th year of the second Abe (Shinzo) government draws to a close, how are we to understand the Abe agenda? The Abe government describes itself as committed to the universal values of democracy, human rights, the rule of law. It lets fly policy “arrows” to revive and energize Japan's “hundred million people” and have Japanese women “shine.” It calls attention to Japan the beautiful. It preaches the gospel of what it calls “resilience,” and declares to the world a commitment to “positive pacifism.” To Okinawa it insists that it is making every effort to “reduce the burden” of the US military presence. Abe's government enjoys high levels of support (60.7 per cent as of November 2016) and Abe himself, having triumphed in four successive national elections, under party rules revised to clear the way for him to do so, now stands a strong chance of staying in office as Prime Minister for three terms (nine years), in addition to his earlier term between 2006 and 2007. By 2021 he might become both the longest serving of Japan's modern Prime Ministers, and (if he manages to accomplish his agenda) its most consequential.
1 Parts of this paper were first presented in “Chauvinist nationalism in Japan's schizophrenic state,” in Leo Panich and Greg Albo, eds, Socialist Register 2016 – “The Politics of the Right,” (London: The Merlin Press, 2015, pp. 231-249), in “Resilience for Whom?” The Jacobin Magazine, August 2016, and in conference presentations in Okinawa in October-November 2016.
2 For more detailed analysis of the “Okinawa problem,” see “Japan's problematic prefecture – Okinawa and the US-Japan relationship,” The Asia-Pacific Journal – Japan Focus, 1 September 2016.
3 Up from 53.9 per cent just one month earlier (“Beikoku churyuhi zo wa fuyo ga 86% naikaku shiji, 60% ni josho seron chosa,” Tokyo Shimbun, 27 November 2016).
4 Takahashi Tetsuya, “Kyokuu ka suru seiji,” Sekai, January 2015, pp. 150-161.
5 Soda Kazuhiro, Nekkyo-naki fuashizumu – Nippon no mukanshin o kansatsu suru, Kawade shobo shinsha, 2014. Also, “Nekkyo-naki fuashizumu e no shohosen,” Sekai, February 2015, pp 81-95, at p. 89.
6 Kimura Akira, “Hatoyama seiken hokai to Higashi Ajia kyodotai koso – atarashii Ajia gaiko to ampo, kichi seisaku o chushin ni,” in Kimura Akira and Shindo Eiichi, Okinawa jiritsu to Higashi Ajia kyodotai, Kadensha, 2016, pp. 202-230, at p. 230.
7 Ikeda Hiroshi, “Hitler's dismantling of the constitution and the current path of Japan's Abe administration: what lessons can we draw from history?” The Asia-Pacific Journal - Japan Focus, 15 August 2016. See also Ikeda's earlier, “Nachi-to dokusai unda kiken na kokka kinkyu-ken,” Tokyo Shimbun, 26 February 2016.
8 “Bunmei no owari?” Tokyo shimbun, 22 May 2016.
9 “Matsurowanu kuni kara no tegami,” Ryukyu shimpo, 21 October 2016.
10 Japanese subsidy payments to the Pentagon as of 2015 were circa. Y725 billion or $7 billion. It pays a subsidy of $106,000 per US soldier, about 5 times more than Germany, South Korea, or the UK. (Ryukyu shimpo, 19 December 2015 “Omoiyari yosan zoka, shiko teishi no byohei ga arawareta”) For breakdown of that subsidy figure, see Satoko Oka Norimatsu and Gavan McCormack (Resistant Islands – Okinawa confronts Japan and the United States, Rowman and Littlefield, 2012, p. 194.
11 See Gavan McCormack, “Japan's ‘Positive Pacifism’: Issues of Historical Memory in Contemporary Foreign Policy,” Brown Journal of World Affairs, (Watson Institute for International Studies, Brown University), Vol. 2, Issue 2, Spring-Summer 2014, pp. 73-91.
12 Taoka Shunji,“Nihon ban NSC sosetsu no gu,” Shukan kinyobi, 24 May 2013, p. 41.
13 Article 51 of the UN Charter confers on states a temporary (pending authorization by the Security Council) “inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if subject to armed attack.” Abe has been keen to use this as a loophole to allow the dispatch of Self Defense Force (currently restricted to territorial defense of Japan or to non-combat, support missions in the Afghan and Iraq wars) for shoulder-to-shoulder involvement in future wars.
14 Address by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, at The Sixty-Eighth Session of The General Assembly of The United Nations, September 26, 2013, Sori Kantei [Prime Minister's Department], “Speeches and statements by the Prime Minister.”
15 Abe, and the LDP, remain committed to constitutional revision, in particular of the “peace” clause, Article 9, but also recognize the strong public opposition. Abe therefore had cabinet in 2015 adopt a fresh “interpretation” of the clause, in effect “revising by interpretation,” and may now postpone formal revision till the outlook for it is better.
16 Hans Kristensen, “Japan under the US nuclear umbrella,” Nautilus Institute, 21 July 1999,
17 Yomiuri shinbun, 22 August 2003.
18 Quoting a Japanese submission to the US Congress's Strategic Posture Commission, 2008-9. (Hans M. Kristensen, “Nihon no kaku no himitsu,” Sekai, December 2009, pp. 177-183, at p. 180. For the English text of this Federation of American Scientists article, see https://fas.org/programs/ssp/nukes/publications1/Sekai2009.pdf/)
19 Kawasaki Akira, “Kaku gunshuku o hipparu Nihon,” [Japan pulling against nuclear disarmament] Shukan Kinyobi, 28 August 2015: pp. 20-21. For the “Pledge”: http://www.icanw.org/pledge/
20 “UN Nuclear Disarmament Talks,” editorial, Japan Times, 23 May 2016.
21 William J. Broad and David E. Sanger, “Race for latest class of nuclear arms threatens to revive cold war,” New York Times, 16 April 2016.
22 “Domeikoku ni hantai motomeru bunsho,” Asahi shimbun, 27 October 2016, and on the actual vote, “Kaku kinshi e no ippo, jikkosei ni kadai,” Asahi shimbun, 29 October 2016.
23 Gavan McCormack, Client State: Japan in the American Embrace, London and New York, Verso, 2007, p., See also: “Japan's Client State (Zokkoku) Problem,” The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, 24 June, 2013.
24 Nakano Koichi, “‘Neoribe jidai no ea nashonarizumu’ saraba dokusaisha, kensho, boso suru Abe seiken,” Shukan kinyobi, 17 April 2014, pp. 10-14.
25 Nishitani Osamu, “Jihatsuteki reiju o koeyo—jiritsuteki seiji e no ippo,” Sekai (February 2010). pp. 135-6.
26 Magosaki Ukeru, Sengoshi no shotai, 1945–2012, (Tokyo: Sogensha, 2012); and Amerika ni tsubusareta seijika-tachi (Tokyo: Shogakukan, 2012).
27 Magosaki Ukeru, “Dorei konjo marudashi no Abe shusho,” [Prime Minister Abe the epitome of slave mentality] Twitter post, February 24, 2013, 1:21 p.m.
28 Terashima Jitsuro, “Noryoku no ressun, 157, ”Uchimuku to ukeika no shinso kozo – 21 seiki Nhon de shinko shite iru mono,“ Sekai, May 2015: pp. 202-205 at p. 204.
29 Recurrent Abe themes. See: “Abe Shinzo”
30 He did, however substitute Ise Shrine, also intimately connected with the imperial institution, for Yasukuni, “‘Ajia ya sekai ni koken’, Abe shusho, sengo 70 nen danwa ni,” Asahi shimbun, 6 June 2015.
31 Joseph Nye, “The fate of Abe's Japan,” Project Syndicate, 2 November 2015.
32 Kyodo, “McCain: SDF should expect to see action in Korea, deploy to Mideast, South China Sea,” Japan Times, 2 May 2015.
33 Inspired at least in part by Fujii Satoshi's Rekkyo kyojinka-ron, Bunshun shinsho, 2013.
34 “Basic Act for National Resilience Contributing to Preventing and Mitigating Disasters for Resilience in the Lives of the Citizenry,” provisional English translation at http://www.cas.go.jp/jp/seisaku/kokudo_kyoujinka/pdf/khou1-2.pdf/
35 The 900 kilometre subduction zone off the Pacific coast between Shizuoka prefecture and Shikoku.
36 Tokyo Metropolitan Government, 2013. For short account: Finbarr Flynn and Katsuyo Kumako, “In quake-prone Japan, Kumamoto temblors stir worry of ‘Tokyo X-day’,” Japan Times, 29 April 2016.
37 Trevor Nace, “The San Andreas Fault on the brink of a devastating earthquake,” Forbes, 8 May 2016.
38 Kamata Hiroki, “Nishi Nihon daishinsai ni sonaeyo,” Bungei shunju, June 2016, pp. 184-192.
39 Shimamura Hideki, “Kazan to Nihonjin,” Sekai, December 2014, pp. 49-56.
40 Andrew DeWit, “Japan's ‘National Resilience’ and the Legacy of 3-11” The Asia-Pacific Journal – Japan Focus, March 2016, For a slightly abbreviated Japanese version see the DeWit column in Shukan kinyobi
41 Mizuho Aoki and Reiji Yoshida, “Misuse of disaster ‘reconstruction’ money runs rampant”, Japan Times, 26 October 2012.
42 A second Tokyo-Nagoya expressway running about 10 kilometres inland from the existing one, costing around 7 trillion yen ($70 billion), partially opened in 2012 and is due for completion in 2020.
43 The seawall is to stretch for 400 kilometres along the coasts of Iwate, Miyagi, and Fukushima, basically severing sea from land. It will be roughly 10 metres high, 40 metres wide at its base and cost an estimated trillion yen to construct.
44 Saito Takao and Kashida Hideki, “Toron-naki kyodai jigyo no muri to mubo,” Sekai, December 2015, pp. (see also Kashida's Akumu no cho tokkyu – rinea chuo shinkansen, Junposha, 2014.) and “Hotei de towareru rinea shinkansen,”).
45 Kashida Hideki, “Hotei de towareru rinea chuo shinkansen,” Sekai, July 2016, pp. 267-272.
46 Izawa Hiroaki, “Rinea e no san cho en zaito yushi wa hensai ni ginmon fu,” Shukan kinyobi, 14 October 2016, p. 12.
47 The Nikkei index, from a peak of 38,957 in December 1989, was at 8,600 on the eve of Abe's assumption of office late in 2012. It rose to 20,700 in the early summer of 2015 but by September 2016 had fallen to around 16,500.
48 Ishibashi Katsuhiko, “NRA's approval of Sendai nuclear plant ignores Nankai quake risk,” Japan Times, 1 May 2015 (and many other works by this eminent earthquake specialist).
49 Yagasaki estimates Fukushima radioactive emissions to have been two to four times higher than Chernobyl and draws attention to the rising levels of thyroid cancer (Yagasaki Katsuma, “Internal exposure concealed: the true state of the Fukushima nuclear plant accident,” The Asia-Pacific Journal – Japan Focus, May 2016), while Hirose notes that the 116 cases of confirmed thyroid cancer in the Fukushima vicinity, together with 50 more suspected cases, point to a rate several tens of times the national average (Hirose Takashi, “5 nen-go no shinjtsu,” Shukan kinyobi, 11 March 2016, pp. 12-13, and “Chuo kozosen ga ugokidashita,” Days Japan, Vol. 13, No 6, June 3016, pp. 10-25.)
50 Kino Ryuichi, “Hatan shita ‘hyodoheki’ ni yoru osensui taisaku,” Shukan Kinyobi, 16 September 2016, pp. 30-31.
51 “Hairo, 20 cho en jurai sotei no 2 bai,” Mainichi Shimbun, 27 November 2016. Also: NHK Special, “Hairo e no michi, 2016, chosa hokoku, fukuramu kosuto – dare ga do futan shite iru ka,” NHK, Sogo TV, 6 November 2016.
52 Prime Minister Abe's promise to the people of Kyushu that in the event of an accident he would send in the Self Defense Forces and help evacuate people could scarcely have reassured them. “Shusho, Sendai genpatsu saikado e no iyoku,” Nihon keizai shimbun, 28 March 2014.
53 For table of fault lines, reactors, and quake predictions, see Hitose, “Chuo kozosen ga ugokidashita,” pp. 24-5.
54 Jun Hongo, “World right to slam nuke program mismanagement: expert,” Japan Times, 14 April 2011.
55 Henry Sokolski, of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, quoted in “The End of Nuclear Energy in Japan,”
56 Terashima Jitsuro, “Noryoku no ressun,” (147), Tokubetsuhen, “Kyojin na riberaru no tankyu – heisokukan o koete, Hosokawa datsu genpatsu shudanteki jieiken, abenomikusu o ronzu,” Sekai, July 2014: 37-44, at p.
57 Mei-chih Hu and John A. Matthews, “Taiwan's green shift – prospects and challenges,” The Asia-Pacific Journal – Japan Focus, October 2016.
58 Stephen Stapczynski and Emi Urabe, “Japan's $25 billion nuclear recycling quest enters 28th year,” Bloomberg, 5 January 2016.
59 Andrew Glikson, “Cenozoic mean greenhouse gases and temperature changes with reference to the Anthropocene,” Global Change Biology (2016), doi: 10.1111/gcb.13342, passim. (My thanks to the author for copy of this text.)
60 Ibid, see also Andrew Glikson, “Current emissions could already warm world to dangerous levels: study,” The Conversation, 27 September 2016, and Carolyn W. Snyder, “Evolution of global temperature over the past two million years,” Nature, 26 September 2016. (For table showing Minamitorishima levels rising from 359 to 401.4 between 1993 and 2015 see “CO2 nodo kako saiko,” Ryukyu shimpo, 1 June 2016).
61 If such a classification is in due course adopted, the Anthropocene epoch would follow the Holocene, the 12,000 years of stable climate since the last ice age during which all human civilization developed. It would begin around 1950, and would be defined by “the radioactive elements dispersed across the planet by nuclear bomb tests,” together with an array of other signals, “including plastic pollution, soot from power stations, and even the bones left by the global proliferation of the domestic chicken.” (Damian Carrington, “The Anthropocene epoch: scientists declare dawn of human-influenced age,” The Guardian, 29 August 2016.) See also Elizabeth Kolbert, The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, 2014.
62 Glikson, “Cenozoic,” p. 11.
63 Jason Hall-Spencer, “Ocean acidification and underwater volcanoes in Japan,” Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation, seminar, Daiwa House, London, 24 May 2016.
64 “Trumpery,” as defined in Wordsmith.org/
65 Ayako Mie, “Trump and his policy in Asia remain an unknown for Japan,” Japan Times, 9 November 2016.
66 “Abe shusho, Kurinton-shi to kaidan, Nichibei domei kyoko nado kakunin,” Asahi Shimbun, 20 September 2016.
67 The former is the figure given by military affairs critic Taoka Shunji, (“Nichibei ampo o nani mo shiranai Toranpu,” Shukan kinyobi, 25 November 2016, pp. 18-19) while the latter is my own estimate, see part one of the present paper.
68 Sato Masaru, “Hoppo ryodo ga Ampo no tekiyo jogai ni naru kanosei,” Shukan kinyobi, 14 October 2016, pp. 36-7.
69 At 43 kilometers long and up to 70 meters deep, the Soya Strait would be an expensive project but probably no more technically difficult than the existing Japanese Seikan tunnel under the Tsugaru Strait between Honshu and Hokkaido (53 kilometers long and 140 meters deep). Kiriyama Yuichi, “Shiberia tetsudo no Hokkaido enshin, Roshia ga keizai kyoryoku de yobo,” Shukan ekonomisuto, 15 November 2016, p. 22.
70 Tsuyoshi Sunohara, “Negotiations between Japan and Russia as part of Japan's long-term strategy,” AJISS (Association of Japanese Institutes of International Affairs) Commentary No 240, 25 November 2016.
71 Kamata Satoshi, “Kensetsu hi 2 cho 2000 oku en de mo ugokanai ‘saishori kojo’,” Shukan kinyobi, 14 October 2016, p. 25. Also, “Japan to scrap troubled ¥1 trillion Monju fast-breeder reactor,” Japan Times, 21 September 2016.
72 “Shinkansen, Bei o hashiru ka,” Chunichi shimbun, 18 November 2016.
73 Heianna, op. cit.
74 “Trump rips U.S. defense of Japan as one-sided, too expensive,” Japan Times, 6 August 2016.
75 Heianna Sumiyo, “Nihon ni okane de kensetsu sareru kichi' Toranpu Seiken ni iron nashi, Henoko minaoshi hodo toku,” Okinawa taimusu, 27 November 2016.
76 Jerome Fenoglio, “With Donald Trump's victory, anger has triumphed,” Le Monde Diplomatique, 9 November 2016.
77 John Menadue. “Quo vadis – the future of the US-Australian alliance”
78 Other factors of course also played a role, including the meeting with Putin in Peru on 19 November which fed hopes of a solution to the territorial dispute with Russia.
79 For Japanese media and public response to the Trump election, Kihara Satoru, “Toranpu shori (ge) Nihon o ou ‘Nichibei gunji domei’ tabu,” Ari no hitokoto, 14 November 2016.
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