安倍内阁解禁日本集体自卫权

Shinzo Abe’s plans to allow Japanese forces to defend allies have drawn fire from Beijing, which has accused Tokyo of “undermining regional peace and stability”. But they have also heightened tensions back home.

安倍晋三(Shinzo Abe)让日本自卫队保卫盟友的计划招致中国批评，被指“损害地区和平稳定”。但安倍的计划也在日本国内加剧了紧张气氛。

Since the prime minister started public briefings on the move last month, his cabinet’s approval rating has sagged to 45 per cent, the lowest rating since it was formed in December 2012.

自这位日本首相上月就此举开始公开吹风以来，他的内阁的支持率已跌至45%，这是安倍政府自2012年12月组建以来最低的。

Polls taken by three national dailies within the past week showed that at least half of respondents opposed the idea of Japan exercising its right to collective self-defence, with a third or fewer in favour.

三份全国性日报在过去一周进行的民意调查显示，至少一半受访者反对日本行使集体自卫权的主意，三分之一或更少的受访者赞同。

On Sunday a man set himself alight on a pedestrian footbridge in the busy Tokyo district of Shinjuku, having spent an hour denouncing Mr Abe’s plans through a megaphone, said eyewitnesses. He was taken to hospital but his condition is unknown.

目击者称，上周日，一名男子在通过扩音器谴责安倍的计划一小时后，在东京繁忙的新宿区的一座人行天桥上自焚。此人后被送往医院，但目前状况不详。

Thousands took to the streets near parliament on Monday and yesterday, some waving posters depicting Mr Abe with a swastika tattoo and Hitler moustache.

周一和周二，成千上万人走上街头，在日本国会附近抗议，其中一些人举着安倍晋三刻着纳粹纹身、留着希特勒式小胡子的海报。

Many Japanese are not fundamentally opposed to what Mr Abe is attempting to do. The prime minister’s more assertive foreign policy – including the visit last December to the Yasukuni shrine, where Japan’s wartime leaders are honoured – has played well among voters. And some see problems with existing restrictions on the country’s Self-Defence Forces. At the moment, for example, troops on overseas relief missions are allowed to discharge their weapons only if they themselves come under fire.

很多日本人并不是从根本上反对安倍试图采取的行动。这位日本首相更为自信的外交政策——包括去年12月参拜供奉日本战死者亡灵的靖国神社(Yasukuni shrine)——在选民中反响不错。同时，一些人认为，日本自卫队目前面临的限制确实存在各种问题。例如，目前在海外执行救灾任务的自卫队部队只有在自己遭遇敌方火力的情况下，才被允许使用武器还击。

“If NGOs very close to Japanese camps are attacked, the SDF may not be able to help,” says Yoshiki Mine, a former diplomat in charge of talks with North Korea. “This is very, very odd.”

“如果非常靠近日方营地的非政府组织遭到攻击，自卫队未必能提供帮助，”曾负责与朝鲜谈判的前外交官美根庆树(Yoshiki Mine)表示，“这是非常、非常奇怪的。”

But many resent the way the prime minister has gone about it. Critics argue that the shift amounts to, in effect, a rewriting of Japan’s constitution, but without any attempt to clear the requisite hurdle of a two-thirds majority in both houses of parliament, followed by a national referendum.

但是，很多日本人对首相在这件事上的具体做法不满。批评者提出，解禁集体自卫权实际上是对日本宪法的重写，但并没有寻求按正式程序在国会两院以超过三分之二的多数票通过、然后举行全民公投。

Article 9 of the constitution states that “the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as a means of settling international disputes”. The charter has not been revised since it was adopted in 1947.

日本宪法第九条声明：“日本国民衷心谋求基于正义与秩序的国际和平，永远放弃以国家权力发动的战争、使用武力或武力威胁作为解决国际争端的手段。”这部宪法自1947年通过以来从未修订。

The Japanese are still “very attached to the principle of pacifism in the postwar regime”, says Jiro Yamaguchi, a professor of political science at Hosei University, who is among a group of more than 500 scholars opposed to the move. “We are against the amendment of the constitution without formal procedures.”

日本法政大学(Hosei University)政治学教授山口二郎(Jiro Yamaguchi)是逾500名反对此举的学术界人士之一。他表示，日本人仍然“非常重视战后政权的和平主义原则……我们反对不走正式程序的修宪行为。”

Mr Abe’s supporters claim the SDF’s looser mandate is nothing to be afraid of. Shinichi Kitaoka, a former Japanese ambassador to the UN who served as the deputy chairman of a panel advising on reinterpreting the constitution, says the shift should be seen as a continuation of the government’s efforts to beef up its defence policy, including the creation last year of a US-style national security council and the introduction of tougher laws to penalise leaks of classified information.

安倍的支持者称，放宽自卫队的权限没什么可怕的。日本前驻联合国大使、就重新解释宪法提供建议的顾问委员会副主席北冈伸一(Shinichi Kitaoka)表示，这一转变应被视为政府加强国防政策的努力的延续，这些努力包括去年组建一个美国式的国家安全委员会，以及出台惩罚泄密的更严厉法律。

Mr Kitaoka also notes that there have been reinterpretations of the constitution before, allowing Japan to establish the SDF in 1954, for example, and to support US forces overseas in 2001. But to many, defending allies even when Japan itself is not under direct attack stretches the definition of the “minimum” level of armed strength enshrined in Japan’s fundamental concepts of national defence.

北冈还指出，以前也有对宪法的重新解释，比如1954年允许日本建立自卫队，以及2001年允许自卫队在海外支援美军。但对许多人来说，在日本自身没有直接受到攻击的情况下去保卫盟国，这与日本国防根本概念中神圣不可侵犯的“最低”水平军力的定义实在难以吻合。

“It is reckless that [Mr Abe] rushed to decide on this very important issue without thorough discussions,” says Shigeaki Matsuda, a 66-year-old exhibition curator who joined the protest yesterday. “There is no democracy here.”

“（安倍）在未经深入讨论的情况下，匆忙在这个非常重要的问题上做出决定，这很鲁莽，”昨日参加抗议的66岁的展览策划人Shigeaki Matsuda表示，“这里没有民主。”

Prospects for a legal challenge are not encouraging, as Japan’s Supreme Court has a history of deferring to the government on security matters. So as Mr Abe tries to push supporting legislation through the Diet in coming sessions, says Prof Yamaguchi, the onus falls on opposition parties to mount a challenge. “We’ll keep fighting,” he says.

法律挑战的前景并不令人鼓舞，因为日本最高法院在安全事项上曾多次顺从政府。因此，法政大学的山口教授表示，在安倍接下来试图推动国会支持配套立法之际，只有依靠反对党来发起挑战。“我们将继续斗争，”他说。