Guideline Postponed

It may be called deceit or fraud when a person requires money or labor within a time limit, even though the limit does actually not exist. The government of Japan did something close to that story. Both governments of Japan and United States agreed on postponing revision of Japan-U.S. Security Guideline to next year. The greatest reason of Shinzo Abe administration to decide reinterpreting of the Constitution for enabling exercising collective self-defense right this summer was because the government needed to finalize the guideline by the end of this year. The handling of that highly controversial security policy lost its cause.

The guideline is to determine the role of each military of Japan and U.S. in a contingency of Japan or its neighboring country. Joint statement by both governments admitted the necessity of further discussion for finishing their effort within the first half of next year, considering internal process of Japan for security legislature. It means that U.S. government is not satisfied with the simple fact of making governmental decision for exercising collective self-defense right.

Both governments agreed on the timing of finishing revision of the guideline as the end of 2014 in the joint statement of ministry level meeting in October last year. It was Japan who insisted on setting time limit of the end of this year. It is easy to suppose that Japanese government wanted to take advantage of the agreement for persuade the nation. “We need to change the interpretation of the Constitution, because we have to make a deal with United States by the end of this year,” governmental leaders asserted many times in discussion in the Diet.

However, Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, gave up submitting necessary legislations to the fall session of the Diet. It was mainly because the coalition partner, Komeito, was reluctant to hurry up. The government also considered negative impact on gubernatorial election of Okinawa in November. There will be major local elections in next April, which Komeito takes as extremely important. The submission of related bill will be next May or later.

Here is a fundamental question: Is the revision of guideline really needed? Both governments expect the guideline to be useful in any stage of contingency. However, there is an argument that both military have been integrated enough to do that. Some experts in Washington, D.C., are worrying about decline of momentum, caused by delay of the revision. After all, the guideline might have been a tool for Japanese government to reinterpret the Constitution.