Ichida criticizes Abe's quest to enable Japan to exercise the right of collective self-defense

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Ichida criticizes Abe's quest to enable Japan to exercise the right of collective self-defense

Japanese Communist Party Secretariat Head Ichida Tadayoshi at a press conference on September 11 criticized Chief Cabinet Secretary Abe Shinzo, the leading candidate for the Liberal Democratic Party president, for repeatedly expressing his intention to enable Japan to exercise the right of collective self-defense by means of a hawkish interpretation of the Constitution.

Ichida pointed out that the Japanese government has long insisted that the Self-Defense Forces do not fall in the category of "war potential" that the Constitution prohibits Japan from possessing on the following grounds: Japan cannot dispatch the SDF overseas to use force abroad; Japan cannot exercise the right of collective self-defense; and Japan cannot participate in U.N. forces tasked to use force.

Ichida said that Abe intends to exercise the right of collective self-defense by changing the constitutional interpretation because it will take too much time to revise the Constitution itself. Referring to the U.S. strategy to mobilize its allies into its "long war," Ichida stated, "What Abe is suggesting amounts to the ultimate change of constitutional interpretation aiming at Japan's taking part and using force in U.S. wars of aggression like the one in Iraq."

Ichida pointed out that remorse over the war of aggression gave birth to both the U.N. Charter and the Japanese Constitution, and that Abe has failed to indicate that he will stand by then Prime Minister Murayama Tomiichi's statement in 1995 expressing "apology and remorse" for "Japan's aggression and colonial rule." He said, "Abe's remarks show his attempt to overturn the basic principle of the Constitution, rejecting the starting point of postwar Japan. This is very dangerous." Ichida stressed that Abe's qualifications as Japan's next prime minister is called into question.
- Akahata, September 12, 2006