He gives a harsh assessment of U.S. failures in the Middle East, saying that after the Cold War “the Middle East became the epicenter of world conflict.” He also blames problems in the Middle East on the influence of Jews in the United States. Here he quotes a discredited supposed statement by Benjamin Franklin calling for the expulsion of Jews from the United States. But he makes it worse than even the falsely rumored English statement by using a harsher word than “expulsion.”

“The United States must destroy (滅ぼされる) the Jews,” he claims Franklin said. And he agrees. After the somewhat shocking anti-semitism comes another kind of religious fervor. He exalts a personified (or really deified) Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution as a humanity-saving god of peace.

Article 9 has remained silent all these years, he writes, but pretty soon its silence will be broken. He writes:*

怒りだす時が来る。憲法９条という「平和の神」がその意志を示し始めのだ。その時、誰もがその前にひざまづく事になる。その神が声を発したら、それに逆らう事は誰にも出来ない。そうだ。怒れ！憲法９条よ。愚かな人間を目覚めさせて欲しい。声を上げて欲しい。

The time when it gets angry is coming. The ‘god of peace’ called Article 9 will begin to reveal its will. At that time, everyone will kneel before it. Once that god’s voice is heard, no one will be able to go against it. Yes, indeed. Get angry! Article 9! I want you to wake these foolish people. I want you to give us your voice!

As the only people to have been hit by a nuclear bomb, he writes, the Japanese people’s awakening will move the god of peace and rescue the world.

*Comments or corrections welcome on all translations.

HANNITY: Senator, you know, just as we’re coming on the air here tonight, Japan is suspecting that North Korea, in fact, conducted a second nuclear test. And, as we think about this, what is the answer here? Is the answer that we worked through the United Nations or is a stronger answer that we rearm Japan, that we offer them some type of missile defense, and perhaps they even become nuclear-prepared?

MCCAIN: If the United Nations, because of China and Russia, do not invoke the strictest form of sanctions, that will affect our relations with both countries in a variety of ways. It is in China’s interest, not for any reason other than it’s not in China’s interest to see an escalation of tension on the Korean Peninsula.

Yes, the Japanese would have to rearm. The Japanese would have to acquire defensive weapons. What happens with Taiwan? The whole area could be in jeopardy of some kind of conflagration. That’s why it’s in China’s interest. [emphasis mine]

And, by the way, they control the food, and they control the oil that goes into North Korea. And they could exercise that if they want to.

So first the United Nations sanctions. But China has got to play a greater role. And they’ve been doing pretty well.

HANNITY: Rearming Japan, a resolution to defend Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, that would all be in the areas that you would suggest to the president at this particular point, remind the Chinese that, in fact, the Olympics are coming?

MCCAIN: Yes. And I would also make it clear to the Chinese that we’re not happy with some things, like the currency exchange. We’re not happy with their repression of democracy. We’re not happy with their failure to progress recently on a path to a free and open society.

And we will continue our steadfast belief that Taiwan will only be reunited to China if it’s done in a peaceful manner and the people of Taiwan desire to do so. Until then, we will protect them.

This second answer looks like an exercise in unloading predetermined China talking points. It strikes the usual ambiguous note on Taiwan.

But let’s take the bolded statement apart. He says Japan would have to “rearm” and “acquire defensive weapons,” when in fact Japan already has defensive weapons, and U.S. patriot missiles have been deployed in Okinawa since June 2006. Rearming could mean replacing current weapons with other, similar ones. More likely it means bringing Japan’s level of armament back to a higher, former level. Given McCain’s invocation of a possible regional “conflagration” that could involve Taiwan, we can only assume he means revising Article 9 of the Japanese constitution and giving Japan the right to engage in collective self defense.

It’s entirely unclear to me whether he means that rearming Japan would be in China’s interest or that a strong U.N. reaction to North Korea’s nuclear test is in its interest because anything less would lead to rearming Japan.

It would be nice to ask some follow-ups now that the North Korea situation has cooled off.

What makes Abe a nationalist has little if anything to do with his ideas about Japan’s place in the world and more to do with his vision of Japanese society. In short, Abe and his allies in the LDP want to use the state to recreate a more unified Japan as a means of coping with the problems Japan will face in the twenty-first century. What makes Abe a nationalist is his desire to forge (or re-forge) a kind of dynamic unity among the Japanese people, under the rule of the emperor, of course. As he said in his debate with Ozawa Ichiro this week, “If Japan’s long history, traditions and cultures can be likened to a tapestry that the Japanese people have been weaving, the emperor is the warp.”

An interesting question if we’re talking about Japanese nationalism in a historical sense is whether Abe or Koizumi is indeed the bigger nationalist. The nation-building (i.e. unifying) efforts by the Meiji government prominently featured the symbolism of the Yasukuni Shrine, and they used Yasukuni as a place to show off Japan’s new pride in regarding itself as a modern nation. The shrine was strategically located on a Kudan Hill, which then separated upper- and lower-class areas of Tokyo, with the idea of symbolizing unity. Kudan Hill is also conveniently right across the street from the Imperial Palace Grounds, lest you would forget how important the emperor was to the emerging Japanese nation-state. (An excellent source for the early history of the shrine is Akiko Takenaka’s dissertation on Meiji nationalist architecture: Takenaka-O’Brien, Akiko. “The Aesthetics of Mass Persuasion: War and Architectural Sites in Tokyo, 1868-1945.” Yale University, 2004.)

As we know, Koizumi spent much more time and international political capital than Abe has in paying tribute to Japan’s late 19th—early 20th century nationalism. But Abe has spent more energy on a more contemporary and more instrumental form of nationalism, the revision of Article 9. The rhetoric behind constitutional revision—especially among the people usually called “nationalists”—often invokes the desire for Japan to become a “normal state.”

Indeed, as currently constituted, Japan lacks one of the main characteristics of an independent sovereign state: the ability to use force or the threat of force as an instrument of foreign policy. The result is a relationship with the United States that puts its status somewhere in the area between protectorate and strategic ally. Though Japan could theoretically cast off U.S. ties without changing its constitution, the security environment makes this highly unlikely. Changing the constitution would, for better or for worse, strengthen Japan’s independence as a state.

So my verdict: People like Abe who favor constitutional revision are “practical nationalists,” whereas people like Koizumi who pay tribute to late 19th century nationalist traditions are “sentimental nationalists.”

For a long time — I have to admit decades — I discounted alarmist stories of Japan moving to the right and wanting to revise the constitution. Generally those forces weren’t important 10 or 20 years ago, but they’re very important now. They’ve been moving closer to the Bush administration, particularly Rumsfeld when he in office, and Cheney and what they want Japan to do.

After calling earlier Japan-fearers “alarmist,” you might expect him to justify his alarm with evidence. Alas, he appeals to presumed negative sentiments toward the Bush administration to paint Japan as closer to the belligerent United States than to its constitutional pacifism. He goes on to say that “Japan” (not its leaders) is playing a “dangerous game,” and that even though he thinks it’s unlikely the right will get enough support to revise the constitution, we should be worried that they’re even trying.

I must say this is a thoroughly odd series of statements from a well-respected historian, and it may show that he’s out of practice talking about the future instead of the past. (Jonathan Spence seems much more careful, and I do allow that Cumings might significantly revise his statements if given the chance.)

But let’s look at the embedded assumptions here. By arguing that Japan is not doing well by getting closer to the Bush administration, he implies disapproval of U.S. actions (by no means an unreasonable position) and underlines the hazard for Japan of getting closer to a problematic United States. But if the Japanese constitution were revised, giving Japan the sovereign right to use force in international relations, Japan would be much more free to act independently of the United States.

Japanese rightism does not innately imply alignment with the United States. Indeed, as I’m sure Cumings knows, Ishihara Shintaro, one of the most prominent Japanese rightists, made his first international political splash with the book「NO」と言える日本 (The Japan That Can Say No), a nationalist argument for a Japan more independent from the United States in economic and foreign policy. Article 9 revision would give Japan the ability to be a more equal military partner with the United States, but it would also increase its ability to stand alone. It’s likely Prime Minister Abe will not be in power when the constitutional referendum comes up in 2011, so it’s quite hard to predict what geopolitical changes would result.