In Tokyo, a decision, a compromise, and an introduction to debate:
A House of Representatives constitutional study panel Tuesday unveiled a draft of its final report in which the majority of panel members support revising Article 9 of the Constitution to have the existence of the Self-Defense Forces stipulated in the supreme law. ...After coordinating opinions over the report, secretaries from each party will submit a final report to lower house Speaker Yohei Kono in mid-April.The majority support upholding the war-renouncing Paragraph 1 of Article 9, but approve the use of force in exercise of the right of self-defense. The majority also support Japan's participation in international cooperation and U.N. collective security activities. They also agreed on the need for creating a framework for regional security in Asia.
...As for the SDF and the right to exercise self-defense, the draft says "the majority do not oppose constitutional measures." A draft drawn up earlier by the Liberal Democratic Party said a majority considered it necessary for some kind of constitutional measure to be taken. The change in the wording was apparently made in consideration of the opinions of other parties, including Minshuto (Democratic Party of Japan), which are cautious about expanding such rights.
The committee has delivered on schedule with a decision that meets most recent expectations — a recommendation that Japan acknowledge its progress as a democracy. At first glance it's difficult to imagine how a country could reconcile obviating "war as a sovereign right of the nation" when it has the means to, in fact, settle "international disputes," but potential revision would remove the more literal contradition of Article 9's second sentence, assuring the people of Japan that armed forces "will never be maintained." Occupation authorities began raising a military before the end of the 1940s, and today the country's legendarily effervescent culture belies a military of capability not seen since the 1930s.
Only this time its leaders are elected civilians with no designs but for security and benevolence. Japan does reserve the right — indeed, Tokyo has an obligation — to protect its people and its allies from the threat of lingering dictatorships and other authoritarian threats. China and North Korea personify that abstraction for the public pretty well. The Liberal Democratic Party's gift to an adversarial Democratic Party of Japan is not exactly deference: a majority of Japanese lawmakers do not oppose departing from postwar canon, and this has never happened before.