Towards global involvement
JAPAN constitution to the effect that, as the United Nations is an international peacekeeping institution, there is no conflict between the Japanese constitution and the commitment of forces under the UN flag. To support the UN is to support the aims of the Japanese constitution. This argument is the new rationalization for the sending of Japanese forces overseas.
US PRESIDENT George Bush's visit to Japan in the second week of January - and his spectacular collapse at an official dinner - put US anxieties about growing Japanese economic power into the headlines. Junichi Hirai, a leader of the Japan
Revolutionary Communist League (JRCL - A Trotskyist organization)), explained to IV the nature of the US/Japanese relationship and recent changes in the Japanese social and political landscape.
JUNICHI HIRAI
WOULD like to start by talking about the meaning of the recent talks between the president of the
USA George Bush and the Japanese
Prime Minister of Japan Kiichi Miya-
The discussion between the two leaders was held on January 8-10, 1992. The main theme was economic issues, and above all the economic conflict between the US and Japan. The Bush government is putting very big pressure on the LDP
(Liberal Democratic Party) government to solve the American deficit in foreign trade between the two countries. Basically, the Japanese government accepted these pressures from Bush.
The Japanese government promised
Bush to import 20,000 more American cars in a year. Japanese capitalists promised also to purchase $19bn worth of car parts in 1994. Generally speaking, the
Japanese government accepted the American pressures to support the US economy, which is in deep crisis.
The second point in the discussions was about building a global partnership between US and Japanese imperialism.
As a big economic power, Japan is increasing its commitment to US global policies, especially in Asia, but also
Japan will help with the so-called aid policy towards the Soviet Union and elsewhere.
In Asia, there are two important issues for the Japanese bourgeoisie and the
American government. The first is the so-called normalization process in China and the tensions in the Korean peninsula.
The US/Japanese joint statement issued by the two leaders considered Asia as an unstable area where there are big potential conflicts. In this context the statement confirmed the need for an advanced deployment strategy by the US which
Japan would support. Japan is to step up its political and perhaps also semimilitary contribution to this strategy.
Until recently the military alliance was mainly directed against the former Soviet Union. Now the USSR has disintegrated and a decrease in tension has taken place. In this framework have been various disarmament talks in Europe. In Japan however disarmament has not been on the agenda. Here the military capacity is to be shifted towards
Despite the economic conflict, the Jap anese bourgeoisie supports the US global political framework. They want to preserve the relation between the US and Japan. Thus they are obliged to accept various US economic demands. The opinion of the mainstream Japanese bourgeoisie is that if Japan is to maintain its position on the world market, it must support US military and political hegemony. Without that, in the view of the Japanese bourgeoisie, it would be extremely difficult for it to keep its cur-
Financial support for Gulf crusade
When the Gulf War broke out there were strong voices in the ruling LDP saying that Japan should take part in the US-led crusade against Iraq. In fact Japan gave strong financial support ($13bn) although it did not send military forces. After the war, Japan sent a fleet of mine sweepers to the Gulf; this was the first time since the war in which Japan has sent military forces outside the country.
The Japanese postwar constitution forbids Japan from engaging in any overseas military action and prohibits the formation of a Japanese army. Now, a new argument is being put forward by powerful voices in the LDP about this
Last year a draft law was proposed in parliament by the LDP and some elements in the Buddhist Komeito party. This is the UN Peace-keeping Draft Law to legalize the participation of Japanese military forces in UN peace-keeping forces. Eventually this law passed. However, now a new effort is being made to get an amended law on this question adopted. The immediate aim of this new legislation is to allow the sending of Japanese forces to Cambodia.
There is a new change in popular mood in relation to these questions. In the past, people say, Japan enjoyed prolonged peace, but now there is a widespread feeling that to maintain peace in Japan that country must take part in global peace-keeping efforts through the UN. Thus the leadership of the strongest trade union confederation Rengo supports such an involvement.
However in other Asian countries there is a feeling of threat from this develop ment in Japan. They fear a new stage of Japanese imperialism. This is true not only among the people; the governments of South Korea and China have denounced this new legislation. There are a number of reasons why these governments take such a line. One of them is the experience of the Second World War, when the Japanese killed millions of people in the occupied East Asian countries. The memories of this remain very strong.
Resentment of Japanese neo-colonialism
Another reason, especially among the ordinary population of East Asia, is resentment of Japanese neo-colonialism and economic domination. This is a massive sentiment. Most of these countries are part of the great scheme of Japanese imperialism. For example in South East Asia there is a process of industrialization. However this takes place as a part of the global strategy of Japanese capitalism. Thus industrialization means an increase in Japanese involvement. So-called Japanese economic aid goes to to ruling layers and the masses do not necessarily benefit. In this situation a new critical awareness of Japanese economic domination is developing.
The Second World War was a colonial war by Japan, but even now the Japanese government has never officially and honestly apologized for this war and no subtantial compensation has been paid. At 27 he same time in the ruling circles there March 2, 1992 • #223 International Viewpoint
JAPAN is a substantial current opposed to any form of apology to the East Asian contries. They felt that the war was in some ways legitimate.
In this context, more direct Japanese political and military involvement in this area will come into direct conflict with popular feeling.
On the Japanese domestic situation: in the last 40 years only one party, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), has formed the government. In 1989 there was an Upper House election and an upset; half of the members of this house must be elected every six years and this time the biggest opposition party, the Socialist Party, got more seats There were two reason for this victory; the first was that the leader of the SP was a woman, Ms. Doi, with popular appeal.
groups outside the traditional framework of the trade unions supported her. At the same time the LDP was in very bad state due to constant scandals and big problems with the peasantry due to US pressure over the liberalization of
With the outbreak of the Gulf crisis and war, the Japanese bourgeoisie started a big offensive arguing it was Japan's duty to support this effort. This also involved a big ideological offensive against the SP, to which that party capitulated and shifted to the right. Ms. Doi lost the party presidency to be replaced by Mr. Tanabe, a member of an explicitly right-wing faction whose idea is to base the party on the Rengo trade union confederation. The Socialist Party has also been renamed as the Social Democratic Party (SDP).
### Socialist Party seeks consensus framework
Tanabe wants first of all to formulate a consensus framework on international and domestic policies. This is one basic target. He is trying to bring together all the social democratic forces in a single parliamentary party on this basis. He says that if the SP wants to be an alternative government party it must be respon-
The Japanese Communist Party (JCP) is a rather big party in comparison to the CPs in most other imperialist countries. Recent events in the Soviet Union and all that have made life very difficult for this party; its response has been conservative. They just say that they have been a nationally based independent party since the end of the 1960s and have for a long time denounced Soviet hegemonism. Thus it all has nothing to do with them.
At the same time the JCP is very critical of the capitalist restorationist developments in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. They have also denounced the European CPs for abandoning social28 its bureaucratic monopolistic siructure, ist ideas. Internally the CP is tightening International Viewpoint #223 • March 2, 1992 suppressing the potential for internal dissidence. However, the CP is very much on the defensive in Japan. There is a definite trend towards falling electoral support, although it is not dramatic.
There are various currents in Japanese society which reject the current rightwing shift of the SP, but this does not necessarily translate into support for the JCP. These currents remain within the broader SP framework.
The Japanese popular response to the government's attempts to get involved in the Gulf war effort was weak in comparison to what was seen in the USA for example. The CP held several mass rallies, with audiences of around 10,000. As for the SP and Rengo, they never took any initiative to organize mass protests against the war. The independent left groups and trade unions took various joint protest actions, but the mobilizations were very limited - a few thou sand people in Tokyo for example.
When the UN peace-keeping law was before parliament there was a joint campaign against it between the independent left and leftwing elements in the SP. The biggest demonstration gathered about 12,000 people in Tokyo — a bit better than during the Gulf War. This campaign had some impact on the SP as a whole, influencing it to take a clear position in opposition to this legislation.
Opposition to law on overseas troop deployment
The fact that the SP took an opposition position to the UN law was one of the reasons why the legislation was unsuccessful in Parliament last year. In general, the situation movement independent from the SP and the CP is rather difficult. Those move. ments are scattered regionally, are quite dispersed expression. So the independent forces of the popular mass movement are very weak. In this context, among the popular independent movement there is a strong tendency to accept the SP framework.
The other tendency, to which we want to give an independent expression, is very weak. We need a popular political nationwide initiative independent from the SP and CP. In order to realize this, a base in the trade union movement on a nationwide scale is needed. If there is no independent current in the trade union movement it will be impossible to build an independent movement. So far there does not seem to be much potential for this in the trade union movement.
In this context various popular spontaneous movements have arisen that are more and more localized and depoliticized and more and more concerned with various single issues; for example environmental issues. As for ourselves, the Trotskyists, we have been quite weakened over the last six or seven years. We are in a diffi-
Until the recent past Japan was a somewhat closed and homogeneous although of course there have been Koreans in Japan for decades. In that context there have been various discriminations against Koreans in Japan. Ordinary people felt Japan was homogeneous — when the government says that Japan is a homogeneous society ordinary people tend to accept that idea.
Since the mid-1980s many Asian immigrant workers have begun to come to Japan and to become part of the Japanese workforce; not only from Asian countries like Pakistan, Iran, Bangladesh or the Philippines, but also from Latin American countries, mostly second and third generation Japanese emigrants who have been coming to Japan as a supplementary workforce
There are no official government statistics about the number of those workers in Japan but there are hundreds of thousands of these immigrant workers. They are now an indispensable component of the Japanese workforce, especially in the building sector and subcontracting enterprises in the manufacturing sector. Withthose subcontracting sectors could not Immigrant workers lack legal
The current legal system in Japan prohibits any unskilled workers from coming to and working in officially, these hundreds of thousands of immigrant workers are working illegally. Therefore, the working conditions those workers are very harsh and wages are very low. When they are injured they have no social security support at all. The size of the immigrant workforce is
So far in Japan there has been no open fascist-type campaigns against workers like we have seen in Western Europe. However, in the consciousness of ordinary Japanese people there is a potential chauvinist element. We must not under-estimate the potential of this reactionary aspect of the consciousness of the ordinary masses. So far there is a shortage of labor, but were there to be a serious economic recession there might be some kind of explosion of chauvinis-
Though there is no national campaign there are various local initiatives to help, support and defend immigrant workers This is very new. We think the number of immigrant workers will continue to increase and this is a new element of the Japanese situation. In this context the new initiatives to support immigrant workers are extremely important.This is why we have taken part in such initia-