not necessarily to anyone's advantage

So Shinzo Abe is elected by a landslide as Japanese PM. The DPJ were a disaster in a whole number of ways, but Sino-Japanese conflict over the Diaoyus/Senkakus seems to have played its part :

In a recent interview, Mr Abe told me it was time for Japan to change its pacifist constitution so it can have a proper military and defend its own territory. He also vowed to protect every inch of Japan's sacred land and sea - including the disputed Senkaku or Diaoyu Islands.

That by itself is not particularly controversial. But Mr Abe belongs to that part of Japanese society that does not really believe Japan's wartime aggression against China and South East Asia was a crime.

He favours the teaching of a more patriotic, uncritical version of Japanese history. Most controversially, he has openly said he does not believe that Japanese troops forced Chinese, Korean, and women from other Asian countries into sexual slavery during the Second World War.

It looks like the LDP and its allies will have a supermajority, so constitutional change might be more likely than previously, assuming that its genuinely on the agenda. From the point of view of overall Sino-Japanese relations that's a poor result. But it's also not a great result for the objective of building a containing alliance against China. The next place to watch is South Korea, which goes to the polls on December 19.

Abe, incidentally, is the only Prime Minister I can recall who claimed that he once resigned from office due to uncontrollable diahrroea of the non-verbal sort. Given that ulcerative colitis is partly triggered by stress, we're likely to get a bit of low comedy to go along with all the geopolitical tension. Like the man said: it's squeaky bum time.

Comments

[Alex]

so it can have a proper military and defend its own territory

Jesus Christ, you look at the Japanese navy... - that's a proper fucking military.

[chris y]

Certainly makes the RN as presently constituted look a bit anaemic.

[guthrie]

Hmmm, looks like someone learnt the lesson of WW2, which is why built huge battleships when you can't even import the food and material your homeland desperately needs?

[Igor Belanov]

I sense a 'proper military' might involve nuclear weaponry for the more vanity-conscious nationalist. Might be a way of executing a big u-turn on the nuclear power issue.

[ajay]

I am being optimistic and thinking that he is just talking about renaming it (from the Self-Defence Forces) and changing the constitution a bit. So, no concrete change.

[Chris williams]

Guthrie, the JMSDF is shifting from a focus on ASW (which yeah, you can easily file under 'lessons learned') towards an increasing capability in amphibious warfare. I love the cute way that they call an LHD an LST, and the event cuter way they label aircraft carriers and assault ships 'destroyers'. That's me fooled, clearly.

[Alex]

Interestingly, the DDH concept seems to originate from every defence comments troll's favourite book, D.K. Brown's Future of the British Surface Fleet. That had a 12k tonne, long range hull with an escort's armament fit, a big flight deck, and facilities for 6 big helos. If you deleted some of the warload, made the hull a bit porkier accepting a few knots fewer, and used the space freed up for troops and kit (or possibly for the F-35 flight's air weapons magazine) you'd have something very similar.