Japan prepares to drop its pacifist mask as the right rises

Japan appears to be edging ever closer to a referendum on its pacifist constitution, after a realignment of parliamentary forces delivered the supermajority needed to put the change to a public vote.

For nearly eight decades, Article 9 of the 1947 constitution – drafted under Allied occupation and long treated as untouchable – has prevented Tokyo from formally maintaining a military with “war potential”.

That article has outlasted every previous attempt to change it. But Japanese conservatives now believe Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has what her predecessors lacked: the numbers, the public mood and the political will to finish the job.

Takaichi swept to a landslide election victory in the House of Representatives in February, with her pro-amendment allies also now commanding more than two-thirds of seats in the Upper House

“Momentum is building once again,” Tsutomu Nishioka, a visiting professor at Reitaku University and a senior figure in the conservative Japan Institute for National Fundamentals think tank, told This Week in Asia.

Nishioka has watched the debate for decades and believes the conditions today are unlike any that preceded them.