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shifting attitude.
1.5 Arrangement of chapters
This article aims to analyze the possible reasons that might change Japanese people’s attitude toward Article 9 of constitution. To be more precise in this topic, this article will focus on the international level’s incidents instead of domestic ones. This article will divide into seven chapters to solve the puzzle: “Why do Japanese people change their attitude toward Article 9 of constitution?” Seven chapters will be followed by introduction, literature review, the influence of the media bias, and the change of attitude affected by three countries: The United States, North Korea and China.
For the introduction part, I will talk about the change of the public opinion in recent years, and use three sections to elaborate my purpose of study. Firstly, the background aims to shape the basic knowledge of the Japanese constitution. Historical factors such as Pacifism ideology and the original principle of the constitution have deeply affected Japanese people’s thought, so there is necessity to speak of the history of the constitution. Secondly, the puzzle seeks to illustrate the main purpose of this study.
Figure 1.4 attempted to indicate the core concept of the study: the obvious change of the public’s approval rate. Lastly, the section will give a brief summary of the argument.
The second chapter will cover some of the literature related to the constitutional amendment, also brief of my argument. Basically, literature often talks about the influence of constitutional amendment. Constitutional amendment not only refers to the revision of Article 9, also includes several laws in the Japanese constitution. Most of the literature have mentioned the legitimacy of the SDF during UN’s peacekeeping operation. The scale and the scope of the SDF has created controversial issue. The fundamental concept of the Japanese Constitution has constructed the ideology of Pacifism, but the operation of the SDF could not fully follow this concept. Thus, the SDF dispatch provoked the opposing voice. The public claimed that Japan could make a contribution to the international order as an economic superpower rather than
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military force.32 However, the change of the international environment once again made the revision of Article 9 become a heated topic to discuss. There will be four sections in this chapter to talk about the change of the public opinion, also, the research framework of this study. The whole study will be constructed by the framework
Chapter 3 will discuss about different media’s characteristics and features. In general, different media might put their own perspective into news and their surveys. To make the consequence of the survey more objective in this study, I would illustrate their features, and their viewpoints of the revision of Article 9. Three mainstream media (NHK, Asahi and Yomiuri Shimbun) have their own perspective to it, and the survey questions conducted by them also affect the respondents’ answers. Thus, I will illustrate the difference of the three media in this chapter, in order to have more comprehensive explanation for my study.
The following chapters will look at Japan and three countries’ bilateral relationships.
As I mentioned before, this study will take international incidents to analyze the public’s attitude. To be more precise at the topic, I will put three countries (The United States, North Korea and China) in different chapters.
Chapter 4 details the strategic/security relationship between Japan and the United States, elucidating how the level of the partnership between two countries and U.S strategy on Asia-Pacific security affairs might affect the public’s attitude. This chapter will use power transition theory to illustrate Japan and U.S relationship. Japan has long been U.S best ally, two countries not only share the economic resource but also have cooperation in security policy, especially in the Asia-Pacific area. Article 9 is closely connected to Japan’s security defense policy, so it is vital to examine U.S viewpoint in this study. Incidents occurred in each period might possibly cause impact on the survey’s result, so chapter 4 will be divided into four sections, follow by the pattern of the survey: stable, decrease, increase and sharply increase to speak of the change of the public opinion.
32. Dobson, Hugo. Japan and United Nations Peacekeeping: New Pressures, New Responses.
(London: Routledge, 2003.)
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Chapter 5 talks about how North Korea’s ongoing missile threat might panic the public, fearing that being attack by neighboring countries. Some of the literature have discussed about the public’s fear toward North Korea33, this made some of the people think of increasing the power of military force. The hardline policy conducted by the United States and Japan has provoked North Korea’s anger, and the situation got worse ever since Kim Jong-un became North Korea’s leader. According to the record, one of the missiles testing in 2017 caused a visible threat to Japan. The missile launch directly landed in Japan’s exclusive economic zone.34 This chapter will focus on the bilateral relationship between Japan and North Korea, and a section to talk about South Korea’s attitude toward Japan’s revision of Article 9.
Chapter 6 aims to illustrate the influence of Japan’s perception of China and explain why some of the Japanese people take the revision of Article 9 as a way to prevent threat from China. This chapter will divide into two sections to specify Japanese people’s concern about China: economic partnership, security competitor. Also, China is an important factor in this issue; the bilateral relation plays a vital role in regional stability. Japan’s revision of Article 9 is likely to influence China’s military policy, under this circumstance; there is necessity to discuss the role of China in this issue.
The final chapter concludes the study with a summary of what possible reasons might cause impact on Japanese people attitude toward Article 9. This study did not focus on the domestic factors of Japan, mostly targeting the international factors. As a result, the main conclusion drawn from this study is that, the shifting attitude of the public resulted from believing revision of Article 9 might increase Japan’s defense capability.
29. Chapter 2.
34. Berlinger, Joshua. “North Korea's Missile Tests: What You Need to Know.” CNN. (December 04, 2017.) (Accessed January 10, 2018.) https://edition.cnn.com/2017/05/29/asia/north-korea-missile-tests/index.html.
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The constitution has long been a controversial issue in Japan. This issue involves in not only international society, also relates to domestic power struggle. For the international aspect, the United States and neighboring countries still deeply influence the direction of Japan’s defense policy. Scholars and politicians have brought about numerous opinions on this issue. Thus, this chapter is going to have a brief view on available literature, and look for further explanation for it.
2.1 The Causation for Changing the Defense Policy
Traced back to the end of World War II, the Japanese constitution itself is a negotiation between the U.S. occupation and Japanese government, the main purpose of the constitution is to eliminate Japan’s possibility to launch a war. Because of this purpose, two governments added the concept of Pacifism into Article 9. The definition of Article 9 clearly clarifies that Japan is not allowed to have any military forces under any circumstance. Judging from the clause, the existence of the SDF itself is a paradox. Scholar argues that the legitimization of the SDF deployment was supported by the UN Charter.35 In other words, the existence of the SDF did not violate Article 9. On the other hand, the cost of maintaining hegemonic influence around the world has caused the United States suffers from the economic restraint.
Resulting from reason above, the United States gradually supports Japan for its constitutional revision. If Japan is able to defend itself independently, the self-fund policy might reduce America’s economic burden.36 Also, with the rise of China, Foot argues that, the U.S comes up with the great power management strategy cooperating with Japan to balance Beijing’s growing power.37 In general, the U.S attitude toward Japan’s defense policy is highly related to the stability of East Asia region.
35. Hughes, Christopher W. “Why Japan Could Revise Its Constitution and What It Would Mean for Japanese Security Policy.” Orbis 50, no. 4 (2006): 725-44. doi: 10.1016/j.orbis.2006.07.011.
36. Panton, Michael A. “Politics, Practice and Pacifism: Revising Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution.”
37. Foot, Rosemary. “Power Transitions and Great Power Management: Three Decades of China–
Japan–US Relations.” The Pacific Review 30, no. 6 (2017): 829-42.
doi:10.1080/09512748.2017.1303535.