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Premier Li Keqiang recently stated that "expansion is not in the Chinese DNA." But aggression and war are certainly in Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's blood. He is the maternal grandson of Nobusuki Kishi, a war criminal jailed for looting China but was released from Sugamo prison by U.S. Gen. Douglas MacArthur and later became Japanese prime minister.

A woman holds a placard "opposing the war" during an anti Abe government rally in front of the prime minister's official residence in Tokyo on July 2, 2014. Shinzo Abe proclaimed Japan's powerful military had the right to go into battle in defence of allies, so-called "collective self-defence", in a highly contentious change in the nation's pacifist stance. [Xinhua photo]

Abe wants to make Japan a "normal country" with the right to collective self-defense, that is, the right to fight wars again. To do so, he needs to revise Japan's pacific constitution. But the threshold for doing so is too high: it requires two-thirds approval in both houses of the Diet and a majority of voters in a nationwide referendum.

So Abe is trying to circumvent the constitution and short-cut the democratic process using an initiative to reinterpret Article 9 of the constitution to lift constrains on the Japanese military and permit collective self-defense.

His coalition partner the New Komeito has basically caved in under relentless pressure from Abe as it declared it would not resign from the coalition over this issue. Regrettably, the New Komeito, which was founded by the Nichiren Buddhist organization Soka Gakkai, is supposed to be a pacific party.

With the New Komeito on board, the cabinet approved Abe's resolution to reinterpret the war-renouncing constitution to open the way for Japan to exercise the right to collective self-defense.

The resolution would allow Japan to exercise the right to collective self-defense if an armed attack is to be launched on countries that have close relations with Japan, and the fundamental rights of the Japanese people are in imminent danger. However, use of force in exercising the right would be permitted only in cases where there is no alternative, and should be limited to the minimum necessary.

All these conditions are subject to interpretation. What are countries that have close relations with Japan? The United States, obviously; Australia, to which Abe wants to transfer submarine technology. What about the Philippines? And Vietnam?

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