News Analysis: Abe's Machiavellian tactics seek to create culture of fear to justify war moves

The public outcry and subsequent plummet in support for Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his administration following the steamrolling of unconstitutional war bills through the lower house last week led to revelations that Abe decided to force the bills through with his party's majority vote as he knew the public would never accept them, no matter how many hours were spent debating them.

The unilateral move by Abe was described by sources close to the matter as a sign of Abe's"frustration"at a public growing to be ever more aware of the militaristic direction their leader is trying to force their country in -- a direction that has been socially and constitutionally rejected for the past 70 years since the end of World War II.

Such awareness was shown in a number of high-profile civic protests around the national Diet building, with some reaching numbers not seen since the students' protests in the sixties, with participants swelling to more than 100,000 a day before the contentious bills were forced through the lower house, in a clear sign that Abe had alienated his electorate by failing to explain to them sufficiently about the war legislation that if enacted by the upper house, will allow for Japan's Self-Defense Forces to have a far more expanded role alongside its allies overseas, including in active theaters.

Abe has consistently talked of a changing security environment in the Asia Pacific region as one of the reasons Japan needs to bolster its military clout, in a bid to sway public opinion, but the Japanese leader has overestimated the support he has from the public following his unilateral reinterpretation of the constitution to draft the war bills, and prior to this, bulldozing legislation to create a National Security Council and a special secrets law, both of which the public disapproved strongly of.

According to the latest polls, the approval rate of Abe's government has plummeted to 37 percent, the lowest level since he took office in late 2012 and a sizable obstacle for his war bills' smooth enactment in the upper house in the extended diet session before the end of September. "The Japanese public have finally caught on to how manipulative Abe can be when it comes to policies and laws that he believes should go ahead. We now know that he assured Washington way in advance that the current war legislation would go ahead, even before inter-party debates on the contentious bills had begun in earnest, and in a brazen assumption that the Japanese people would just fall in line and accept whatever direction he decided was best for the country,"pacific affairs research and defense analyst, Laurent Sinclair, told Xinhua. "But for Abe this has backfired monumentally, as the public have now made it clear that they do not approve of Abe's unilateral moves, particularly those that relate to Article 9 of Japan's constitution and Abe's attempts to hollow it out. They can see the potential for further reinterpretations in the future that could see the very real threat of war brought right to Japan' s door step, or at a bare minimum see SDF members killed in roles abroad that they didn't sign up for," Sinclair said.

He went on to explain that out of a sense of a bizarre mix of "desperation and obligation," Abe and his administration have, in recent days, sought to foster more public support and hence ease the bills' transition into law in the upper house in a number of"Machiavellian" ways, including appeasing the public over a Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games government-related-gaffe, while hyping up the perceived threat of one of Japan's closest neighbors in a bid to rationalize the war bills at question. "It could be suggested that in a calculated move to show the public that they are being listened to, Abe decided to scrap the current designs for the new national stadium to be used for the 2019 Rugby World Cup and the Olympic Games a year later, in a rare flip-flop by prime minister, as the public had been incensed that the costs of building the new stadium had inexplicably ballooned to nearly double initial projections at a current 2 billion dollars,"Sinclair said. "The Japanese public were monumentally concerned that the debt from the games would be passed on to them via the Tokyo municipal government and not dealt with by the central government which is already struggling with its own crippling debt, the worst in the world, so Abe, against advise that such a move could affect international confidence in Japan, U-turned on the issue and sent the designs back to the drawing board, as had been the appeal from the public,"he explained.

With damage-limitation in place as regards further losing support from the public over the stadium gaffe, Abe, according to some analysts, decided to turn his attention to the"culture of fear"he's been fostering here since his return to office in 2012. If he can convince the public that Japan is under threat and create enough worry and fear in society, then his war bills, currently seen as contentious, will shift to being seen as a necessary evil to protect the nation.

This threat, in the current Abe era, has always purportedly been China, with the level of the perceived threat being raised or lowered very much depending on domestic politics and Abe's fixation on his legacy of remilitarizing the nation. To this end, Japan released its annual defense White Paper on Tuesday and a large proportion of it made mention of China and, essentially, pointed the finger of blame at its neighbor for the current severity of the security environment.

The white paper mentioned China's own military buildup and construction work by China in the East and South China Sea, both of which were quickly justified by Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying who stated in regard to the former that" It is consistent with China's robust economic development,"and in terms of the latter said that"China's relevant activities are in waters within China's jurisdiction and are beyond any dispute."

"In the absence of no actual engagement between Japan and China, in fact not even a minor maritime skirmish in recent times that threatened to escalate, the government here may be making a point of hyping up the'China threat'and probably more so under Abe as he is so feverish about remilitarizing Japan, but needs the public on board to point at a common enemy -- hence the once intermittent, but increasingly more frequent 'China threat'campaigns, which are less about China and more about his own militaristic goals," Sinclair said. "Coupled with this, and regardless of what may or may not be the actual situation in China, Japan's public disclosure of what it described as China's unilateral development of gas fields in the East China Sea, came right on the heels of the release of the white paper and this was clearly a calculated move to stir up tensions and further hype up the'China threat'and again, is less about the actual activities in the East China Sea and perhaps more about the Abe administration demonizing China in a bid to garner diminishing public support from a skeptical public here, at the crux of his legacy-making moves towards remilitarization," Sinclair said. "In short, the timing of the latest'China threat'campaign coming less than a week after the forcing of the war bills through the lower house against the public's will, is far too contrived to be called a coincidence. With Abe, there are no coincidences." Endi