Vanguard - Communist Party of Australia Marxist Leninist

VANGUARD - Expressing the viewpoint of the Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist)
For National Independence and Socialism • www.cpaml.org

Australian armed forces – guardians of the Bushido

US imperialism created it and now wants to get rid of it – the so-called pacifist Constitution of Japan.

It wants to clear the way for the greater deployment of Australian and Japanese forces as its cat’s paws – agents of provocation – against its rival, Chinese social-imperialism.

The current Japanese Constitution came into effect after Japanese imperialism’s defeat in the Second World War.

Drafted by the occupation US armed forces under General MacArthur, it imposed non-belligerence on the Japanese when it took effect in 1947. Article 9 of the Constitution states:

1) 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.

2) 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.

Article 9 was well-received by the Japanese people whose major cities had been fire-bombed to oblivion by Allied aircraft, followed by the dropping of the two atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

However, the US imperialists and Japanese militarists soon regretted imposing a pacifist constitution on the defeated nation.

The Japanese attempted to sidestep the Constitution in 1954 by creating an armed force under the name of the Japan Self-Defence Force, but it was still forbidden from engaging in fighting outside of Japan.

During the 1960s and 70s, when US imperialism was seeking allies for its war on Asian liberation movements, led by Communists, attempts were made to revive Japanese militarism and the Self-Defence Forces were expanded and various “security” arrangements were entered into by the two countries. Despite the stationing of large numbers of US troops and naval vessels in Japan, the Constitution remained in force with the support of the Japanese people.

A more aggressive push for amending Article 9 arose during the time of Shinzo Abe as Japanese Prime Minister between 2012 and 2020. The JSDF's first postwar overseas base was established in Djibouti (July 2010). On 18 September 2015, the National Diet enacted the 2015 Japanese military legislation, a series of laws that allow Japan's Self-Defence Forces to defend allies in combat. The JSDF can now provide material support to allies engaged in combat overseas, as they did with the US in Iraq.

Since 2018, Japanese forces have increasingly participated in joint military exercises with the US and countries loyal to it, including India and Australia.

US imperialism has made it known that Australia and Japan are its southern and northern outposts for the maintenance of its declining hegemony over the Pacific.

Under former Australian PM Scott Morrison, negotiations for a Reciprocal Access Agreement (RAA) were begun, and signed in January 2022. The RAA came into effect on 14 August 2023. The RAA creates a framework for the two cooperating countries to move their military force whenever required through access to one another’s military bases and ports, and also provides a pathway for goods to be imported and exported from one country to the other through following the movement of visiting military forces.

• Japanese F-35s will deploy to Australia, to RAAF Base Tindal for the first time at the end of August;

• Exercise Bushido Guardian, where Australian F-35s will be deployed to Japan for the first time in early September; and,

• Australia will participate in Exercise Yama Sakura as a full participant for the first time with more than 150 personnel travelling to Japan in December.

This means that Tindal will not only host US nuclear-armed B-52 bombers, but also Japanese fighters under the sort of “rotation” fig-leaf that now makes US marines a permanent presence in the NT. The first two Japanese planes, and 55 personnel, arrived at Tindal on August 26.

The reference to Exercise Bushido Guardian was not well-received by some in the Australian armed forces community. Bushido was the “way of the warrior” expounded in the Japanese feudal-era text the Hagakure, which guided the behaviour of Japan’s Imperial Armed Forces during its aggression, firstly against Korea and China, and then during the Pacific phase of WW2.

The following comment was made by a reader of the online Australian Defence Magazine, relying to an earlier comment:

A little unfortunate you made no mention of the 8th Division 2A.I.F. and their experiences with the Japanese Military.

Or even the 5th, 6th, 7th, and 9th Divisions might possibly exist in your World of Australian/Japanese Lovefests?

My Grandfather and his mates from the Thai – Burma Railway might have some news for you regarding ”Aussies repaying debts”.

Still, who cares anymore about the Diggers used for bayonet practice, the machine-gunned Nurses, the decapitations, cannibalism, the mass rapes, executions, torture and innate cruelty of the Japanese Military?

As long as we follow the U.S. into yet another senseless slaughter for Freedumb and Dumocracy, we can enjoy that warm fuzzy feeling of gathering in mobs, getting pissed and singing. . . . . . .

The current generations of young Japanese do not have to carry the guilt of their WW2 warrior ancestors. They are amongst the foremost defenders of Article 9. Nevertheless, many Australians will find the deployment of “our” F-35s to “guard” the Bushido as offensively insensitive as did the author of the comments above.

The Australian and Japanese people must enhance their cooperation and work together to prevent the co-opting of their respective countries into another unwinnable US war of aggression.