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Views from Japan

April 2005

[Society]

MEDIA / "Now Is the Time to Form a Japan-U.S. Conservative Alliance"

In "Now Is the Time to Form a Japan-U.S. Conservative Alliance," Kyorin University professor Tadae Takubo explains that it will remain difficult to forge a new bilateral relationship unless America changes its "weak Japan policy" that seeks to keep Japan from growing stronger. He focuses in this article on the role played by the U.S. media, commenting harshly on the prejudice and lack of knowledge of the major U.S. newspapers he includes among the "weak Japanists." In 1993 Takubo took part in the council to examine the Japanese Constitution led by House of Councillors member Yoshihiko Seki. On February 21 of that year the New York Times ran an editorial decrying Japan's nationalism, in which it claimed that the moves to reexamine the Constitution represented "Right-wing Japanese politicians ... pressing a reluctant public to go further." Takubo criticizes this view, which does not recognize--or pretends not to recognize--that the Japanese who are in favor of maintaining the present Constitution are against America and the security alliance; and which paints Seki, who sought to carry forward the banner of liberalists willing to fight for their beliefs, as a right-winger. On June 4, 2000, the Washington Post editorialized about Japanese nationalism, writing that Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori had called Japan a "divine country." But Takubo states that the correct translation of Mori's phrase is "country of the gods," referring to religious views of Japan as home to myriad deities. He wonders how invoking the word "gods" can make one an espouser of militaristic nationalist sentiment. (Summary of "Ima koso Nichi-Bei hoshuha no renkei o," Seiron, January 2001.)