The Security bills, which Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had dreamed of but the vast majority of Japanese people had opposed to, were rammed through the lower house of parliament last week, endangering the East Asian region and the world as no sincere repentance over wartime history was made by the Abe cabinet.
The controversial bills, which will allow Japan to dismiss the pacifist constitution and fight abroad for the first time since its defeat in WWII, faced strong opposition at home as five opposition parties rejected vote on the bills at the lower chamber of the bicameral Diet and as many as 60,000 people rallied outside the parliamentary building.
Abe's approval rating had dropped ahead of the vote, and 56 percent of those polled expressed opposition to the bills, according to a recent survey by Asahi Shimbun. Only 26 percent supported the legislation that will enable Japan's Self-Defense Forces (SDF) to engage in wars overseas even if Japan is not attacked.
The forced passage also worried neighboring countries as the Abe cabinet had yet to offer a sincere apology for a war of aggression and barbarities in its colonization. The so-called " normalized" military would only raise the specter of "proactive militarism" as its wrong perception of history was not fixed.
"Japan insists on its increased contribution to peace and stability regionally and globally (with proactive pacifism), but there are pros and cons on it," Jo Yanghyeon, a professor at Korea National Diplomatic Academy (KNDA), said in a recent interview with Xinhua.
Unless the Abe cabinet's perception of wartime history satisfies neighboring countries and an about-turn toward its history-revisionist attitude happens, criticism would be nonstop for Japan seeking to strengthen military power alone, Jo said.
Some South Korean news outlets believed that Abe's hurried passage aimed to railroad the bills within the regular session. The upper house is estimated to reject or amend the legislation in 60 days. Abe's Liberal Democratic Party and its coalition partner have a two-thirds majority in the lower house.
Public fury in Japan over the forced passage reminded some South Korean news organizations of the resignation of Nobusuke Kishi, Abe's grandfather, as prime minister in 1960 for his support for security accord with the United States. "If Abe's support rate continues to fall, his authority as prime minister would weaken," said Jo.
To make up for his lost popularity, Abe is expected to seek to mend ties with China and South Korea, Jo noted. But, it seems hard to achieve as Abe has refrained from heartfully apologizing for Japan's past atrocities during the World War II.
Abe depicted hundreds of thousands of sex slaves, mostly Korean women forced to serve in the Japanese military brothels during World War II, as "human trafficking" because he sought to shun the government's responsibility.
He also failed to make clear Japan's war of aggression and colonization of the Korean Peninsula as this year marks the 70th anniversary of the peninsula's liberation from Japan's 1910-45 colonial rule.
This year also celebrates the 70th anniversary of China's Anti- Japanese War victory, which made great contribution to the world's victory in the Anti-Fascist War. Chinese forces killed, wounded and captured over 1.5 million Japanese troops in the Anti-Japanese War, according to Wang Jianlang, director of the Institute of Modern History, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
Japan invaded northeast China in September 1931, but historians generally agree that Japan's full-scale invasion started with the "July 7 Incident" of 1937 when Japanese soldiers attacked Lugou Bridge, a crucial access point to Beijing.
"I agreed with China's role in the WWII victory (of the Anti- Fascist War)," Lee Ji-Yong, another professor at KNDA, told Xinhua. "Because Japanese troops fought a hard battle against Chinese forces, the Allied Forces felt comfortable in the Pacific front," said Lee.
Lee said the Communist Party of China waged the eight-year war of resistance against Japan, in which the Korean Volunteers Army participated. He noted that the Korean and Chinese soldiers formed a common front against the militaristic Japan, adding that China was the center of the peninsula's anti-Japanese independence movement.
