Pyongyang, November 10 (KCNA) — The policy section chief of the Institute for Japan Studies under the Foreign Ministry of the DPRK on Tuesday issued the following press statement “Japan’s scheme to retrogressively revise its constitution is a grave international issue as it is designed to destroy the basis of the postwar international order”:
With the lapse of 80 years since the enactment of its constitution, Japan is getting ever more pronounced in its moves to retrogressively revise the constitution in a bid to legally uphold the neo-militarist policy and get rid of the political and military fetters of the war criminal state.
The right-wing Takaichi Cabinet took office after the formation of coalition between the Liberal Democratic Party, which puts forward the “independent revision of the constitution” as its main policy, and the Japan Restoration Party, which advocates the “establishment of national defense army”, last October. Since then Japan’s moves for retrogressive revision of its constitution have entered a radical phase of implementation.
As soon as she assumed office as prime minister, the present chief executive openly revealed her intention to launch the revision of the constitution during her tenure. And she announced that she would greet the LDP Congress in February next year after mapping out at the LDP Congress in April this year the prospective plan to submit the revision of the constitution to the Diet. |Such assertion sparked off strong concern at home and abroad.
Japan intensified parliamentary debate about the issues of specifying the existence of the “Self-Defense Forces” in the constitution and newly stipulating the “emergency clause” and, as a result, the draft “emergency clause” was knocked out in May and the “national referendum act” was revised in July.
Against this backdrop, the LDP and the JRP recently proposed again to hold intensive discussions on the revision of Article 9 of the constitution, which bans Japan’s possession of war potential, right to take part in any war and right to belligerence, asserting that “to revise the constitution is a requirement of the times”.
Japan, which has persistently stressed the necessity of enacting the “emergency clause” at home with the global pandemic and the worsening geopolitical crises as an occasion, is framing a sinister plot to make a breakthrough in the revision of the constitution at any cost and, furthermore, to retrogressively revise Article 9, the core of the constitution.
It is a cunning intention of the Japanese reactionaries to specify the existence of the SDF in the constitution without revising Article 9 at present in order to avoid criticism and backlash at home and abroad, and thus create an antinomy with the existing provisions, and then reject the essence of the “Pacifist Constitution” under the pretext of addressing it in the long run.
As is known, Japan is branded as an “enemy state” in the UN Charter and its current constitution is a legal cornerstone that bars it from re-launching aggression and war and, at the same time, a legal commitment to take the road of peace it affirmed before the international community.
But since the outset of the enactment of the constitution, the successive ruling quarters of Japan have systematically made its laws dead ones with a view to shrugging off Japan’s image as a fascist war criminal state and making it a war state, out of the sense of humiliation at the present “constitution enacted under the pressure of outsiders” and the revenge ambition.
By absurdly interpreting the constitution in such a way that “observing the will of war renouncement never means the renouncement of the right to self-defence,” Japan crossed the red line of the constitution. In this way it openly created the land, sea and air forces in 1954 and gave the armed forces the deceptive name “Self-Defense Forces”.
Afterward, Japan has sought to turn the SDF into the West’s most offensive forces while construing the constitution only for its own interests with the aim of enacting such laws as the law on special measures against terrorism and the emergency legislation. By doing so, it steadily laid a legal foundation for dispatching SDF troops to other countries.
By adopting in 2015 the “security legislation”, which allows the exercise of the “right to collective self-defense”, Japan made it possible for SDF to use its troops in every part of the world under the pretext of military assistance to other countries. In this way it regained the right to take part in any war and the right to belligerence, which are banned by the constitution.
In particular, Japan worked out a new “national security strategy” in 2022 so as to officially set it as a national policy to possess the preemptive attack capability. By doing so, it threw off even its clothes of “exclusive defense” and turned the SDF into aggression forces. And Japan is now busy preparing for war.
Eventually, the existing constitution of Japan still has the provision advocating the “pacifist state” but has been reduced to a dead document as it has no longer legal regulation effectiveness due to its long malfunction.
The real purpose of Japan’s successive rulers in their desperate efforts to amend the constitution is to remove the cumbersome legal obstacles and attain the ambition for overseas expansion without fail.
The neo-militarist forces of Japan now describe the past bloody war of aggression as “liberation war” and the barbarous colonial rule as “contribution to the modernization”, while praising the war criminals as “heroes” and “patriots”. If such forces enact even a war constitution, the results will be as clear as noonday.
The retrogressive amendment of the constitution by Japan is not a matter confined to its internal affair for amending and supplementing some provisions. But it is a grave international issue as it is aimed to stop fulfilling its obligations as a defeated nation and destroy the basis of the postwar international order. So, it constitutes an unpardonable challenge with adverse effect on the regional security and the global peace.
The international community should never overlook the extremely dangerous moves of Japan, a war criminal state which is seeking to legally launch reinvasion by recklessly building up the military strength and successfully getting through the final barrier to the revision of the constitution. -0-
