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Aircraft carrier and flag moves by Japan unsettling
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A SPATE of symbolic but significant moves by Japan should alarm the peace-loving people of the world.
First, there is the controversy over the proposed elevation of the military rising sun flag to the equivalent status of the national sun flag.
The military flag, featuring a rising sun in the center blazoned with red rays, was used by the Japanese military when it invaded Asia.
The proposed shift is a blatant sign of disregard for those who suffered under Japan’s rule during World War II.
And if that is not sufficiently unsettling, then consider another development.
After the 1947 Peace Constitution was imposed on the country, Japan was forbidden to rearm itself with offensive weapons, interpreted to include aircraft carriers.
It has been skirting that prohibition by building a 248-meter-long helicopter carrier, ominously named Izumo, after the Japanese Imperial Navy warship that steamed into Shanghai’s Huangpu River during the invasion of China in World War II. The carrier was unveiled yesterday at the Harbor of Yokohama.
Japan’s military buildup is all the more disturbing in view of these highly symbolic moves.
In May, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe flew in a training jet code-named “731,” a grim number evoking memories of the notorious “731” troops that waged biochemical warfare in China’s northeast and performed vivisection on prisoners.
Those provocations through names and numbers clearly demonstrate a nation unrepentant over its wartime atrocities and eager to rearm itself.
Some of its right-wing politicians are dead earnest about modifying the Peace Constitution to unshackle Japan from the prohibition on remilitarization.
Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso, for instance, said recently that Japan should quietly revise its constitution, and cited the clandestine way in which the Nazi Party changed the Weimar Constitution before World War II and before anyone realized the change.
Amid an outcry, Aso apologized later.
Yesterday was the 68th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.
It should be a day for Japan to reflect on its commitment to peace. Its latest moves, however, suggest motives to the contrary.
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