Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe scored a victory in his drive to rewrite Japan's pacifist constitution and ease its limits on military action overseas when parliament yesterday enacted a law outlining steps for a referendum on revising the post-World War II charter.

 

Abe, 52, Japan's first prime minister born after the war, has made revising the 1947 constitution a key element in his efforts to boost Japan's global role, limited for decades by the constitution's pacifist Article 9.

 

Drafted by US occupation authorities in February 1947, the constitution has never been altered and procedures for a referendum had not been specified.

 

Under the referendum law, approved by the upper house yesterday, no vote on revising the constitution would be held for at least three years, but its enactment will increase momentum for the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's (LDP) push to state clearly in the charter Japan's right to maintain a military.

 

"The law will be implemented three years hence, and until then, it is important to debate broadly and deeply in a calm environment," Abe said.

 

The passage of the law does not mean that Abe will have a smooth sailing, Jin Xide, a researcher at the Institute of Japanese Studies affiliated to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told China Daily.

 

"For Abe's ambition to revise the constitution, it is the first concrete step; it is a breakthrough," he said. "But it cannot guarantee revision."

 

Tokyo has already taken military steps despite the current constitutional restrictions.

 

It dispatched troops on a humanitarian mission to Iraq in 2004-06, the first time since World War II that Japanese soldiers have entered a combat zone. Tokyo also offers logistical assistance to US-led troops in Afghanistan.

 

Tokyo has airlifted UN and coalition personnel and supplies into Baghdad and other Iraqi cities from nearby Kuwait in support of the US-led war in Iraq. The mission, under way since early last year, is set to end July 31, and parliament is currently debating whether to extend it.

 

During yesterday's vote, about 500 protestors -- including Buddhist monks and students -- rallied outside parliament, accusing Abe of aiming to change the constitution to allow Japan to go to war.

 

Changing Article 9 requires approval by two-thirds of the members of both houses of parliament as well as half the voters in a national referendum.

 

Jin noted that the enactment came at a time when the LDP enjoys an absolute majority in both houses of parliament.

 

"That is why the law was passed in such a hurry because the ruling party was afraid of losing this opportunity."

 

The biggest opposition party, the Democratic Party of Japan, does not oppose revising the constitution but differs with the LDP on how it should be altered; the smaller opposition Social Democratic and Communist parties oppose any changes at all of the constitution.

 

"If a majority of the people say 'No' to the sort of society those who want to revise the constitution are trying to create, the constitution cannot be changed," Communist Party leader Kazuo Shii told reporters. "The real battle begins now."

 

"Japanese constitutionalism is now facing a serious threat, and the threat arises from Abe's lack of understanding and lack of principles," said Kiyoshige Maekawa from the Democratic Party of Japan.

 

Japan's closest security ally, the United States, has made clear it would welcome revision of Article 9, but Japanese voters remain cautious.

 

A survey published earlier this month by the liberal Asahi newspaper showed that while 58 percent of respondents favored some changes to the constitution, 49 percent opposed changing Article 9 against 33 percent who backed revising it.

 

(China Daily May 15, 2007)