ダライラマの宗教を超えて
Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World (English Edition)
Introduction
I am an old man now. I was born in 1935 in a small village in northeastern Tibet. For reasons beyond my control, I have lived most of my adult life as a stateless refugee in India, which has been my second home for over fifty years. I often joke that I am India’s longest-staying guest. In common with other people of my age, I have witnessed many of the dramatic events that have shaped the world we live in. Since the late 1960s, I have also traveled a great deal, and had the honor to meet people from many different backgrounds: not just presidents and prime ministers, kings and queens, and leaders from all the world’s great religious traditions, but also a great number of ordinary people from all walks of life.
Looking back over the past decades, I find many reasons to rejoice. Through advances in medical science, deadly diseases have been eradicated. Millions of people have been lifted from poverty and have gained access to modern education and health care. We have a universal declaration of human rights, and awareness of the importance of such rights has grown tremendously. As a result, the ideals of freedom and democracy have spread around the world, and there is increasing recognition of the oneness of humanity. There is also growing awareness of the importance of a healthy environment. In very many ways, the last half-century or so has been one of progress and positive change.
ダライラマの宗教を超えて
Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World (English Edition)
At the same time, despite tremendous advances in so many fields, there is still great suffering, and humanity continues to face enormous difficulties and problems. While in the more affluent parts of the world people enjoy lifestyles of high consumption, there remain countless millions whose basic needs are not met. With the end of the Cold War, the threat of global nuclear destruction has receded, but many continue to endure the sufferings and tragedy of armed conflict. In many areas, too, people are having to deal with environmental problems and, with these, threats to their livelihood and worse. At the same time, many others are struggling to get by in the face of inequality, corruption, and injustice.
These problems are not limited to the developing world. In the richer countries, too, there are many difficulties, including widespread social problems: alcoholism, drug abuse, domestic violence, family breakdown. People are worried about their children, about their education and what the world holds in store for them. Now, too, we have to recognize the possibility that human activity is damaging our planet beyond a point of no return, a threat which creates further fear. And all the pressures of modern life bring with them stress, anxiety, depression, and, increasingly, loneliness. As a result, everywhere I go, people are complaining. Even I find myself complaining from time to time!
ダライラマの宗教を超えて
Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World (English Edition)
It is clear that something is seriously lacking in the way we humans are going about things. But what is it that we lack? The fundamental problem, I believe, is that at every level we are giving too much attention to the external, material aspects of life while neglecting moral ethics and inner values.
By inner values I mean the qualities that we all appreciate in others, and toward which we all have a natural instinct, bequeathed by our biological nature as animals that survive and thrive only in an environment of concern, affection, and warmheartedness — or in a single word, compassion. The essence of compassion is a desire to alleviate the suffering of others and to promote their well-being. This is the spiritual principle from which all other positive inner values emerge. We all appreciate in others the inner qualities of kindness, patience, tolerance, forgiveness, and generosity, and in the same way we are all averse to displays of greed, malice, hatred, and bigotry. So actively promoting the positive inner qualities of the human heart that arise from our core disposition toward compassion, and learning to combat our more destructive propensities, will be appreciated by all. And the first beneficiaries of such a strengthening of our inner values will, no doubt, be ourselves. Our inner lives are something we ignore at our own peril, and many of the greatest problems we face in today’s world are the result of such neglect.
ダライラマの宗教を超えて
Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World (English Edition)
Not long ago I visited Orissa, a region in eastern India. The poverty in this part of the country, especially among tribal people, has recently led to growing conflict and insurgency. I met with a member of parliament from the region and discussed these issues. From him I gathered that there are a number of legal mechanisms and well-funded government projects already in place aimed at protecting the rights of tribal people and even giving them material assistance. The problem, he said, was that because of corruption these programs were not benefiting those they were intended to help. When such projects are subverted by dishonesty, inefficiency, and irresponsibility on the part of those charged with implementing them, they become worthless.
This example shows very clearly that even when a system is sound, its effectiveness depends on the way it is used. Ultimately, any system, any set of laws or procedures, can only be as effective as the individuals responsible for its implementation. If, owing to failures of personal integrity, a good system is misused, it can easily become a source of harm rather than a source of benefit. This is a general truth which applies to all fields of human activity, even religion. Though religion certainly has the potential to help people lead meaningful and happy lives, it too, when misused, can become a source of conflict and division. Similarly, in the fields of commerce and finance, the systems themselves may be sound, but if the people using them are unscrupulous and driven by self-serving greed, the benefits of those systems will be undermined. Unfortunately, we see this happening in many kinds of human activities: even in international sports, where corruption threatens the very notion of fair play.
ダライラマの宗教を超えて
Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World (English Edition)
Of course, many discerning people are aware of these problems and are working sincerely to redress them from within their own areas of expertise. Politicians, civil servants, lawyers, educators, environmentalists, activists, and so on — people from all sides are already engaged in this effort. This is very good so far as it goes, but the fact is, we will never solve our problems simply by instituting new laws and regulations. Ultimately, the source of our problems lies at the level of the individual. If people lack moral values and integrity, no system of laws and regulations will be adequate. So long as people give priority to material values, then injustice, corruption, inequity, intolerance, and greed — all the outward manifestations of neglect of inner values — will persist.
So what are we to do? Where are we to turn for help? Science, for all the benefits it has brought to our external world, has not yet provided scientific grounding for the development of the foundations of personal integrity — the basic inner human values that we appreciate in others and would do well to promote in ourselves. Perhaps then we should seek inner values from religion, as people have done for millennia? Certainly religion has helped millions of people in the past, helps millions today, and will continue to help millions in the future. But for all its benefits in offering moral guidance and meaning in life, in today’s secular world religion alone is no longer adequate as a basis for ethics. One reason for this is that many people in the world no longer follow any particular religion. Another reason is that, as the peoples of the world become ever more closely interconnected in an age of globalization and in multicultural societies, ethics based on any one religion would only appeal to some of us; it would not be meaningful for all. In the past, when peoples lived in relative isolation from one another — as we Tibetans lived quite happily for many centuries behind our wall of mountains — the fact that groups pursued their own religiously based approaches to ethics posed no difficulties. Today, however, any religion-based answer to the problem of our neglect of inner values can never be universal, and so will be inadequate. What we need today is an approach to ethics which makes no recourse to religion and can be equally acceptable to those with faith and those without: a secular ethics.
ダライラマの宗教を超えて
Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World (English Edition)
This statement may seem strange coming from someone who from a very early age has lived as a monk in robes. Yet I see no contradiction here. My faith enjoins me to strive for the welfare and benefit of all sentient beings, and reaching out beyond my own tradition, to those of other religions and those of none, is entirely in keeping with this.
I am confident that it is both possible and worthwhile to attempt a new secular approach to universal ethics. My confidence comes from my conviction that all of us, all human beings, are basically inclined or disposed toward what we perceive to be good. Whatever we do, we do because we think it will be of some benefit. At the same time, we all appreciate the kindness of others. We are all, by nature, oriented toward the basic human values of love and compassion. We all prefer the love of others to their hatred. We all prefer others’ generosity to their meanness. And who among us does not prefer tolerance, respect, and forgiveness of our failings to bigotry, disrespect, and resentment?
ダライラマの宗教を超えて
Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World (English Edition)
In view of this, I am of the firm opinion that we have within our grasp a way, and a means, to ground inner values without contradicting any religion and yet, crucially, without depending on religion. The development and practice of this new vision of ethics is what I propose to elaborate in the course of this book. It is my hope that doing so will help to promote understanding of the need for ethical awareness and inner values in this age of excessive materialism.
At the outset I should make it clear that my intention is not to dictate moral values. Doing that would be of no benefit. To try to impose moral principles from outside, to impose them, as it were, by command, can never be effective. Instead, I call for each of us to come to our own understanding of the importance of inner values. For it is these inner values which are the source of both an ethically harmonious world and the individual peace of mind, confidence, and happiness we all seek. Of course, all the world’s major religions, with their emphasis on love, compassion, patience, tolerance, and forgiveness, can and do promote inner values. But the reality of the world today is that grounding ethics in religion is no longer adequate. This is why I believe the time has come to find a way of thinking about spirituality and ethics that is beyond religion.
超時的現在の魔法の力
The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment
Acclaim for
THE POWER OF NOW
“I heartily recommend this profoundly inspiring book to all seekers today.”
— Lama Surya Das, author of Awakening the Buddha Within
“This seems to be the ‘right book’ for many people at this point in time. The writing is clear as a bell; the words ring true. Truly an exceptional book that promises to make a real difference in people’s lives.”
— Tom Oakley, Banyen Books, Vancouver, British Columbia
超時的現在の魔法の力
The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment
Acclaim for
THE POWER OF NOW
“The Power of Now was introduced to me by a customer. I read only one page and agreed that it rang true. It is a jewel of clarity and insight. The book has become a word-of-mouth bestseller here at East West.”
— Norman Snitkin, comanager, East West Bookshop, Seattle
“Tolle has succeeded on two fronts: synthesizing the teachings of masters such as Jesus and the Buddha into an easily accessible guide to achieving spiritual consciousness and making a strong case that the inability of humans to free themselves from dominance by the mind and live in the present is the root cause for misery in the world. . . . He makes enlightenment seem attainable and necessary for both individual peace and the health of the planet.”
超時的現在の魔法の力
The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment
Acclaim for
THE POWER OF NOW
“I have no hesitation in recommending Eckhart Tolle’s wonderful book. Everyone I know who has picked up a copy has ended up taking it home. The Power of Now sells on its own merit and by word of mouth.”
— Stephen Gawtry, Manager, Watkins Books Ltd., London
“Fresh, revealing, current, new inspiration. Out of the many spiritual books that cross my desk this one stands out from the flock. . . . If you are considering getting back in touch with your soul, this book is a great companion.”
超時的現在の魔法の力
The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment
Acclaim for
THE POWER OF NOW
“With intense and compelling clarity, Tolle’s guidance holds the promise of leading us to our own best and highest place within, to resonate with and reflect the energy of true transformation.”
— Spirit of Change magazine
“With Eckhart Tolle’s growing presence on bestseller shelves usually reserved for much lighter-weight fare, it will be interesting to see what time has in store for this unusual modern mystic.”
超時的現在の魔法の力
The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment
AUTHOR’S PREFACE TO
THE PAPERBACK EDITION
Six years after it was first published, The Power of Now continues to play its part in the urgent task of the transformation of human consciousness. Although I was privileged to give birth to it, I feel that the book has taken on a life and momentum of its own. It has reached several million readers worldwide, many of whom have written to me to tell of the life-changing effect it has had on them. Due to the extremely high volume of correspondence I receive, I am regretfully no longer able to send personal replies, but I would like to take this opportunity to express my deepest gratitude to all those who have written to me to share their experiences. I am moved and deeply touched by many of those accounts, and they leave no doubt in my mind that an unprecedented shift in consciousness is indeed happening on our planet.
超時的現在の魔法の力
The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment
Nobody could have predicted the rapid growth of the book when Namaste Publishing in Vancouver published the first edition of three thousand copies in 1997. During its first year of publication, the book found its readers almost exclusively through word of mouth. That was the time when I would personally deliver a few copies every week to some small bookstores in Vancouver, something I found enormously satisfying, knowing that every book that I handed over had the potential of changing someone’s life. Friends helped by placing copies of the book in spiritual bookstores farther afield: Calgary, Seattle, California, London. Stephen Gawtry, the manager of Watkins, the world’s oldest metaphysical bookstore in London, England, wrote at the time, “I foresee great things for this book.” He was right: by the second year The Power of Now had developed into an “underground bestseller,” as one reviewer later called it. Then, after the book received a number of favorable reviews in various journals and magazines, its growth accelerated and finally became explosive when Oprah Winfrey, who had been deeply affected by the book, proceeded to tell the world about it. Five years after it was first published, it reached #1 on the New York Times bestseller list, and it is now available in thirty languages. It has been very well received and become a bestseller even in India, a country considered by many to be the birthplace of humanity’s quest for spiritual enlightenment.
超時的現在の魔法の力
The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment
Most of the thousands of letters and emails that have been sent to me from all over the world are from ordinary men and women, but there are also letters from Buddhist monks and Christian nuns, from people in prison or facing a life-threatening illness or imminent death. Psychotherapists have written to say that they recommend the book to their patients or incorporate the teachings in their practice. Many of those letters and emails mention a lessening or even a complete disappearance of suffering and problem-making in people’s lives as a result of reading The Power of Now and putting the teachings into practice in everyday life. There is frequent mention of the amazing and beneficial effects of inner body awareness, the sense of freedom that comes from letting go of self-identification with one’s personal history and life-situation, and a newfound inner peace that arises as one learns to relinquish mental/emotional resistance to the “suchness” of the present moment. Many people have read the book more than once, and they comment that the text loses none of its freshness upon subsequent readings, indeed that the book’s transformative power remains not only undiminished, but actually becomes intensified.
超時的現在の魔法の力
The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment
The more the dysfunction of the human mind plays itself out on the world stage, clearly visible to everyone in the daily television news reports, the greater the number of people who realize the urgent need for a radical change in human consciousness if humanity is not to destroy both itself and the planet. This need, as well as readiness in millions of people for the arising of a new consciousness, is the context within which the “success” of The Power of Now must be seen and understood.
This does not mean, of course, that everyone responds favorably to the book. In many people, as well as in most of the political and economic structures and the greater part of the media, the old consciousness is still deeply entrenched. Anyone who is still totally identified with the voice in their head — the stream of involuntary and incessant thinking — will inevitably fail to see what The Power of Now is all about. Some enthusiastic readers gave a copy of the book to a friend or relative and were surprised and disappointed when the recipient found it quite meaningless and could not get beyond the first few pages. “Mumbo jumbo” was all that Time magazine could see in a book that countless people around the globe found life-changing. Furthermore, any teaching that puts the spotlight of attention on the workings of the ego will necessarily provoke egoic reaction, resistance, and attack.
超時的現在の魔法の力
The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment
However, despite a certain amount of misunderstanding and critical dissent, the response to the book around the globe has been overwhelmingly positive. I feel confident that in the years to come millions more will be drawn to it, and that The Power of Now will continue to make a vital contribution to the arising of a new consciousness and a more enlightened humanity.
America is in the midst of a cultural-political civil war—a fight over our very identity as a people.
冒頭からこういう言葉が出てくる
まさに内戦真っ最中
For decades, this conflict has been fought quietly in city halls, classrooms, school boards, courtrooms, town squares, and state houses across the country. However, the election of President Trump has clarified the battle lines in this struggle and elevated these individual fights into a united national conflict.
アメリカのあらゆる場所で戦いが行なわれてきて、二つの陣営の戦いへとなってきたのが鮮明になってきた「into a united national conflict.」
On one side of this conflict is a factional anti-Trump coalition—a strange amalgam of radicals, liberals, globalists, establishment elites from both parties, and blatantly anti-American groups loosely held together by their hostility to and disdain for the president. On the other side is Trump’s America—the millions of hardworking people who are united by respect for our foundational freedoms, traditional values, and history of limited commonsense governance.
a factional anti-Trump coalition—a strange amalgam of radicals, liberals, globalists, establishment elites from both parties, and blatantly anti-American groups loosely held together by their hostility to and disdain for the president.
奇妙な人達の集り、面白い形容
by their hostility to and disdain for the president
On the other side is Trump’s America—the millions of hardworking people who are united by respect for our foundational freedoms, traditional values, and history of limited commonsense governance.
Before the president rallied Trump’s America and gave us a national voice, the various groups that would eventually form the anti-Trump coalition were winning on their own. For decades, they have meticulously undermined our traditions through politics and courts, entertainment and news media, and liberal schools and curriculum to quietly impose new worldviews on everyday Americans that are counter to our historic principles.
Under President Trump, America is experiencing a great comeback. After nearly a decade of recession and tepid job creation, our economy is booming. In addition, ISIS has been effectively destroyed, illegal immigration is down, our military is being rebuilt, and our veterans are getting the health care and support they deserve. The administration is achieving success across a variety of sectors daily.
Perhaps more important than these successes, however, is the reinvigoration of America’s patriotic sense of self, which the rise of Donald Trump has awakened. Our country is being reconnected to our founding principles, the values that made America the greatest country in the world, and in doing so, is coming to understand just how destructive the last few decades of elite leadership have been to our freedom, prosperity, and safety.
At the center of the fight I’m describing is ultimately one question: Is America an exceptional country? Or more specifically, is America’s historic prosperity and power due to our nation’s unique founding principles, and is it our duty as a people to uphold those ideals?
My daughter, Jackie Cushman, touched on this notion in a column she wrote in July 2009.1 She observed that in 2008, President Obama promised us “change we could believe in,” and it turned out he wanted to change what we believed.
President Obama promised us “change we could believe in,”
オバマはわれわれが期待している変化を約束した
he wanted to change what we believed.
われわれが信じていることを変えようとした
Jackie’s insight points out one of the few common-yet-tenuous threads that bind the members of the anti-Trump coalition together. In various ways, they all want to redefine America, and they would all be happier if the members of Trump’s America were once again ignored and forgotten.
they all want to redefine America
反トランプ陣営はアメリカを再定義しようとした、つまり、変えようということでしょうか
The Senkaku Paradox: Risking Great Power War Over Small Stakes (English Edition)
But over what issues might war against Russia or China erupt? And if war were to occur, how might it be contained before it took the world to the brink of thermonuclear catastrophe? These are the concrete questions, set within the broader context of hegemonic change and great power competition, that this book attempts to answer.
Specifically, I examine how a localized crisis started or stoked by Moscow or Beijing could expand and escalate. It is my contention that, especially in this period of history, such conflicts pose the greatest risk to great power stability and world peace. The signature case, which I have adopted for the title of the book, concerns the uninhabited and disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea, claimed by both Japan and China. But the general problem has many possible manifestations.
That one of these potential adversaries would launch a bolt-from-the blue, all-out attack against a U.S. ally seems much less likely than such limited aggression. It is hard to imagine a major Chinese invasion of the main islands of Japan or the metropolitan area of Seoul in South Korea, for example. And for all of Vladimir Putin’s recent adventurism, the forcible annexation of an entire NATO country, even a small Baltic state, strikes most as implausible. Such attacks, even if initially successful, would and should risk massive responses by the United States and its allies.3 President Donald Trump’s tepid support for NATO, and for U.S. alliances in general, may muddy the deterrence waters somewhat. But even under his presidency, U.S. alliance commitments remain formally in place and American troops remain forward deployed from Korea and Japan to the Baltics and Poland. It would amount to a huge roll of the dice for an aggressor to seek to conquer any one of these states. To be sure, U.S. defense policy should continue to display resoluteness and create capacities of the type needed to deter such large-scale attacks, not just wishfully assume them away. But on balance, deterrence failure on such a massive scale seems very unlikely. Strong American-led alliances, conventional and nuclear deterrence, and economic interdependence all militate strongly against any conscious decision by an adversary to initiate large-scale war.
However, smaller tests of U.S. and allied resolve by Beijing or Moscow and more patient, incremental challenges to the existing global order that do not threaten the lives or main territorial possessions of America’s friends and allies are much easier to imagine in the modern world, as I argue in more detail in chapter 2.4 With China and Russia both flexing their muscles near countries that the United States is sworn to protect, and both seeking to challenge and to modify the U.S.-led regional and global security orders that prevail today, the risks are real. The possibility exists that Washington could be forced to choose between risking war and appeasing Chinese or Russian aggression in ways that could ultimately lead to much graver threats to international peace.5
Japan Rearmed: The Politics of Military Power (英語) ハードカバー – 2019/3/4
Sheila A. Smith (著)
MORE THAN SEVENTY YEARS after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese people remain deeply skeptical of the benefits of military power. When Barack Obama became the first sitting U.S. president to visit Hiroshima in May 2016, he spoke of the horror of the use of force in the nuclear age: “Seventy-one years ago, on a bright cloudless morning, death fell from the sky and the world was changed. A flash of light and a wall of fire destroyed a city and demonstrated that mankind possessed the means to destroy itself. Why do we come to this place, to Hiroshima? We come to ponder a terrible force unleashed in a not so distant past.” The Japanese people welcomed his visit and overwhelmingly approved of his message. As more nations gave into the temptation of acquiring nuclear weapons, Japan steadfastly resisted and became a staunch advocate of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.1
再軍備する日本 Japan Rearmed: The Politics of Military Power
Generations of postwar Japanese leaders have grappled with how to ensure their nation’s defenses in the nuclear age while limiting the power of its military. The Japanese constitution remains as it was written in 1947, with Article Nine committing the Japanese people to eschew the “use of force to settle international disputes.” Prime Minister Abe Shinzō reciprocated Obama’s visit to Hiroshima in December 2016 by visiting the site of the Japanese attack on the United States. At Pearl Harbor, Abe repeated a commitment that Japanese leaders have made for three-quarters of a century: “We must never repeat the horrors of war again. This is the solemn vow we, the people of Japan, have taken. Since the war, we have created a free and democratic country that values the rule of law, and have resolutely upheld our vow never again to wage war. We, the people of Japan, will continue to uphold this unwavering principle while harboring quiet pride in the path we have walked as a peace-loving nation over these seventy years since the war ended.”2
再軍備する日本 Japan Rearmed: The Politics of Military Power
As both Abe and Obama noted in their long-awaited visits to these war memorials, the relationship between the United States and Japan has been transformed, from adversaries in war to strategic allies in the postwar period. The security treaty that codifies this alliance provides for U.S. defense assistance to Japan and for Japanese provision of bases and facilities for the United States. Allying with the world’s strongest military power has provided strategic protection for Japan, deterring its nuclear neighbors with America’s nuclear umbrella. In return, Japanese citizens host over 50,000 U.S. military personnel in their country, as well as the only U.S. aircraft carrier home ported abroad. The U.S. and Japanese militaries operate together not only in and around the Japanese islands but have also worked in coalition with other armed forces across maritime Asia to the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf.
再軍備する日本 Japan Rearmed: The Politics of Military Power
Japan’s strategy of possessing limited military power and relying on its alliance with the United States has served it well, and yet in today’s Asia, Tokyo’s approach to military power is being tested. Northeast Asia has become a far more contested region as Chinese military power increases and as North Korea seeks to become a nuclear state. Japan’s Self-Defense Force (SDF) now regularly runs up against the expanding armed forces of its neighbors. China’s growing military has led to serious clashes with Japan. Chinese maritime and air patrols operate with increasing frequency and regularity in proximity to Japan, and Beijing has challenged Japanese sovereignty over the Senkaku Islands (Diaoyu in China), sending its coast guard and naval vessels to the East China Sea to assert its claims. The failure of diplomacy to resolve these tensions has at times all but broken communication between Tokyo and Beijing, and rising contact between Japanese and Chinese militaries has intensified concern that a miscalculation or unintended incident could easily bring the two Asian nations into conflict. The lack of agreement between Japan and China on their maritime boundary also exacerbates this risk. Tokyo has consulted with Washington on how to de-escalate tensions during these moments of crisis with Beijing. Japanese officials worry about “gray zone” contingencies—clashes below the actual use of armed forces but which could easily escalate to a military conflict.
再軍備する日本 Japan Rearmed: The Politics of Military Power
Japan’s military is being tested not only by China, however. Other neighbors challenge Japan’s defenses. In the north, Russia continues to assert its military presence in and around Japanese air and waters.3 North Korea’s growing missile arsenal has raised serious questions about Japan’s ability to cope with a ballistic missile attack. In the face of these threats, the U.S. president has restated the U.S. commitment to Japan’s defenses several times. President Obama announced on a visit to Tokyo in 2014 that Article Five protections in the U.S.-Japan security treaty would extend to the Senkakus if force were used against Japan. When President Donald Trump met with Prime Minister Abe in Washington in February 2017, he restated this policy. Days later, when North Korea tested its missiles in the direction of Japanese territory, President Trump stood beside Prime Minister Abe at Mar-a-Lago to provide assurances that the United States would be “behind Japan, 100%” in dealing with Pyongyang’s threat. Part reassurance to the Japanese people, and part deterrence against China and North Korea, these declarations of American intentions reflect a growing worry about military activity around Japan.
再軍備する日本 Japan Rearmed: The Politics of Military Power
And yet for all of these assurances, the political mood in the United States has unsettled the Japanese. Just months earlier during the 2016 presidential campaign, candidate Trump had suggested that Japan should defend itself against North Korea. A survey from Pew Research Center in spring 2017 showed only 24 percent of the Japanese have confidence in Trump’s foreign policy.4 Serious trade tensions also simmer just below the surface of the U.S.-Japan relationship. As Japan faces increasing pressure on its defenses, the reliability of the United States seems less certain.
Japanese thinking about their military is changing as the possibility of a military conflict in Northeast Asia becomes more easily imagined. However, Japan’s leaders are unlikely to use armed force before relying on diplomacy to resolve their grievances. Since the end of the Cold War, Japanese security choices have continued to be defined by the political tug of war over how to interpret Article Nine and how to meet alliance demands from Washington. Japan has relaxed its restraints on its military, and the SDF today plays a far more visible role in national policy. The SDF has been deployed abroad repeatedly and has extensive experience in U.S.- and UN-led military coalitions. Like Japan’s civilian leaders, SDF commanders now work alongside a variety of partners in the Asia-Pacific region, especially in maritime security cooperation.
再軍備する日本 Japan Rearmed: The Politics of Military Power
Article Nine still organizes debate in Japan over its military, but it does not limit the size or the lethality of Japan’s armed forces. Threat perception, long dormant as a factor in Japanese military planning, now assumes a larger role in shaping decisions about Japan’s defense needs. The experiences of Japan’s SDF in recent years suggest it must prepare to be tested. Should armed conflict erupt in Northeast Asia, Japan’s choices with regard to the use of force will have tremendous consequences for the region. While Japan’s military has never engaged in combat, changes have been made to clarify when and how Tokyo’s leaders will order their armed forces to defend Japan. Japan’s leaders have become far more comfortable using the military as an instrument of statecraft.5
再軍備する日本 Japan Rearmed: The Politics of Military Power
Article Nine and Japan’s Defenses
The uniqueness of Japan’s constitution has drawn the world’s attention and is the focus of considerable scholarly inquiry.6 However, it remains a politically charged issue within Japan. Drafted under occupation, Article Nine was designed to demilitarize Japan. Imperial Japan’s devastating defeat in World War II led to an occupation headed by the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers, General Douglas MacArthur. MacArthur ordered the drafting of a new constitution. In a note to aides, he offered three principles to guide their efforts. The institutions that had led Japan’s modernization—the emperor, the military, and the aristocracy—would be reformed. The emperor would no longer exercise supreme authority in governing his nation, and Japan’s aristocrats would no longer inherit power. Japan’s citizens would choose their leaders and, through them, their national priorities.
再軍備する日本 Japan Rearmed: The Politics of Military Power
The “no war” clause offered a legacy of contention, one that remains today within Japan as well as beyond. MacArthur’s initial vision was the complete pacification of Japan, a revolutionary aim for a culture that had prided itself on its martial spirit. MacArthur’s vision for reforming Japan went hand in hand with similar U.S. ambitions to transform the world order. Tying Japan to the emerging architecture of collective security seemed just as important as democratizing political power. In his note, MacArthur wrote, “War as a sovereign right to the nation is abolished, Japan renounces it as an instrumentality for settling its disputes and even for preserving its own security. It relies upon the higher ideals which are now stirring the world for its defense and its protection. No Japanese Army, Navy or Air Force will ever be authorized and no rights of belligerency will ever be conferred upon any Japanese force [emphasis added].”7 Thus, in the immediate aftermath of World War II’s devastation, the American idealism that informed the occupation’s reformers saw this new constitution as complementing the construction of a new global order, organized around the United Nations, which promised collective security and the peaceful settlement of disputes. The world changed quickly as the postwar peace brought conflict and a Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. U.S. policy toward Japan shifted abruptly too, in what the Japanese refer to as the “reverse course.” Before the occupation was over, Americans were urging Japan to rearm, as war broke out on the Korean Peninsula.
再軍備する日本 Japan Rearmed: The Politics of Military Power
The Japanese government insisted on interpreting Japan’s new constitution to allow for self-defense. Even as the document was being drafted in 1946, Japanese leaders sought to temper General MacArthur’s zeal for pacifying their nation.8 The Committee to Consider the Problem of the Constitution, tasked with working with the occupation authorities on the draft, sought to tone down MacArthur’s language. Once the draft of the new constitution went to the Japanese House of Representatives, the chair of its Committee on the Bill for Revising the Imperial Constitution, Ashida Hitoshi, reportedly tweaked it even further to open the way to allowing Japan to acquire military force for self-defense. The final version of Article Nine, Japan’s renunciation of war, reads as follows:
“
Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes.
In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.
再軍備する日本 Japan Rearmed: The Politics of Military Power
Like MacArthur, Japan’s drafters referenced the larger global effort to avoid indiscriminate use of force, yet they argued that the use of force for self-defense was legitimate under the charter of the newly created United Nations, which endowed all nations with the right to defend themselves. Japanese leaders ever since have interpreted Article Nine as allowing for military power sufficient to defend their nation. But they have done so cautiously and often in the face of deep domestic criticism.
Japan’s early debates in the Diet focused largely on this interpretation over the purpose of military power. In 1954, the SDF was established alongside the Defense Agency—a civilian bureaucracy that would manage military planning. Rather than debating Japan’s external security challenges, Diet debates focused on how to limit the growth of the SDF and curtail the political influence of the military over policy. Periodically, Japanese cabinets would be weakened by controversies over the behavior of the SDF, with opposition critics charging the ruling party with failing to exercise sufficient control over the military institution.9 From 1955, the LDP dominated Japanese politics and governed Japan as the majority party or in coalition, however, giving the conservatives the ability to define their country’s postwar defense choices. Nonetheless, tension between progressives and conservatives over the legitimacy of the SDF continued for decades.
再軍備する日本 Japan Rearmed: The Politics of Military Power
The language of Article Nine mattered in these legislative tangles. While few argued that Japan should be able to use force to settle its international disputes, the ambiguous second paragraph invited contention. For opposition critics, Article Nine banned armed force of any kind. They blamed Washington for urging Japan to rearm and accused government officials of concluding “secret agreements” with the United States that violated the spirit of the constitution and, even worse, would draw Japan into war. Japan’s conservatives continued to interpret it as Ashida had intended. Yet more recently, even conservatives take issue with the ambiguity, suggesting it is disingenuous and misleading. In 2017, a new approach was put forward by Prime Minister Abe: to add a third paragraph to Article Nine stating that Japan’s SDF is constitutional.10 Rather than addressing the core proscription on the use of force, Abe argues for ending domestic squabbling over the legitimacy of Japan’s military.
再軍備する日本 Japan Rearmed: The Politics of Military Power
In practice, Japanese government interpretation of Article Nine has always been elastic. The most consequential debates about the constitution’s influence over how to arm Japan and how to use force to defend it took place decades ago. At that time, questions such as whether it would be legitimate for Japan to maintain nuclear weapons or launch a preemptive strike if its security were threatened were directly addressed. Indeed, early postwar political leaders were unabashed in their concern with how to defend their country in the nuclear era. Hence the Japanese government has never argued that Article Nine would prevent the nuclear option or the acquisition of the ability to strike offensively with armed force should Japan’s security be threatened.
再軍備する日本 Japan Rearmed: The Politics of Military Power
Japan has been surrounded by countries with considerable military forces. The former Soviet Union, while not identified as a direct threat to Japan, had considerable military might positioned close by and maintained a substantial nuclear arsenal. The successful acquisition of nuclear weapons by China in the mid-1960s also raised a new source of concern for Japan. But it has really been in the wake of the Cold War that Tokyo has felt that it is increasingly facing adversaries who might use force against Japan. Thus, it remains difficult to know if the normative constraints of Article Nine defeated the impulse to respond to threat of the use of force by others. In theory, at least, Japan’s leaders have not excluded any type of military capability. Instead, they have wielded Article Nine as a statement of Japanese intentions.
日中の対立は不可避なのか。靖国問題、東シナ海の海洋権益の問題、中国製冷凍餃子中毒事件などの食の安全の問題、尖閣問題などをめぐって緊張が高まる日中関係について、米国知日派の研究者が日本側の動向を中心に冷静に分析し提言する。Sheila A. Smith, Intimate Rivals: Japanese Domestic Politics and a Rising China (Columbia UP, 2015) を全訳する。
I began to consider the idea of writing a book on Japan’s relations with China in the early 2000s while at the East-West Center in Hawaii. Tensions between Japan and China had erupted over the visits by Prime Minister Koizumi Jun’ichirō to the controversial war memorial, Yasukuni Shrine, and policymakers in Washington were becoming increasingly concerned about the inability of Tokyo and Beijing to put their history behind them. An East-West Center alumnus, Otsuka Takao, president of the Hotel Grand Palace in Kudanshita, offered me the perfect setting for my frequent research trips to Tokyo with my boisterous young son. The hotel was located next to the Yasukuni Shrine, and we often walked among the beautiful gingko trees and towering torii gates in the early hours of the morning when jetlag made sleep impossible. Aged Shinto priests rustled in their robes from building to building, and I could not help but wonder how this rather anachronistic site had become a focal point in the diplomacy of Asia’s two largest nations.
Differences over twentieth-century history were not the only cause of Sino-Japanese tensions. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, new difficulties arose. Trade tensions over the import of shiitake mushrooms and tatami mats began to complicate economic relations. Violence against Japanese at the Asian Cup games in Beijing in 2004 shocked many in Japan. When demonstrators in cities around China protested the revision of Japanese textbooks in March 2005, Japanese businesses also were damaged, further souring public opinion about China. In the corridors of Asian summit meetings, Chinese and Japanese leaders exchanged chilly stares and refused to speak. In 2006, in the midst of this “deep freeze” in diplomatic relations, Prime Minister Koizumi, dressed in full formal wear, paid an official visit to the Yasukuni Shrine on August 15, the day of the Japanese commemoration of the end of the war. A few weeks later, he resigned after five years as Japan’s prime minister.
For a while, Koizumi was blamed for the downturn in Tokyo’s relations with Beijing, and his successors seemed to make progress in changing the tenor of the relationship. Other factors continued to plague diplomatic ties, however. Public attitudes toward China were hardening. China’s economy grew, and the economic interdependence that had anchored Japan’s relationship with China created unforeseen frictions. The new UN Convention on the Law of the Sea raised questions about maritime claims, and the East China Sea became more and more populated with survey ships and new, more modern, naval vessels. Even regarding the deeply sensitive issue of historical memory, the Koizumi era was not the first entanglement of China policy with Japanese domestic politics and popular sentiment, and it would not be the last. In Japan, this intimate contact with a changing China was unnerving to many and called into question the premises of Japan’s postwar identity.
