Japan’s Article 9 in the East Asian Peace

Abstract

The peace that has characterized the East Asian region since the 1980s came about as the cumulative effect of a number of political priority shifts, setting economic growth as the main national goal. First out was Japan. This chapter argues that Japan, with its peace constitution and Yoshida doctrine, was the pioneer of the East Asian Peace, serving as model and inspiration for the other regional states when they, at different junctures, opted out of war in order to grow their economies. The regional peace remains fragile, however, and the ongoing attempts to reinterpret or revise Japan’s peace constitution and allow Japan to take part in so-called “collective defence” contributes to that fragility.