 Good afternoon, everybody. The cameras are rolling. It's lovely to have you here. My name is Barry Colfer and I'm the Director of Research here at the Institute of International and European Affairs in Dublin. As ever, a real warm welcome to everyone who's here, before me in Norfolk, Georgia Street, and hello to everyone who's joining at home. It's a real delight to be collaborating again with colleagues in the Japanese Embassy. Ambassador Mariama is here and I'm going to hand over to him in a moment, but just again it's been a real joy to work with you and your team. This is our second collaboration in the past year, in fact, so it's just really great to be keeping up these relations. We're going to hear from one of Ireland's most eminent diplomatic historians, Declan Downey, who's an expert in Japanese and European diplomatic history, will tell us about achieving compatibility of pacifism and self-protection, Japan's national defense strategy. I'm thrilled that a great friend of the Institute, John Neary, is going to be chairing. Thank you, John. I'm going to leave it to you in a moment to do the real honours, but before I'm going to hand over to the ambassador. Thank you so much. Thank you very much for these kind of introductions, and please don't worry, I have this one, but I don't have any intention to make a long, long speech, so please be here. I just want to say how I'm grateful to be here, and how I'm delighted to have this opportunity to have Dr. Downey to tell us about the national recent, very interesting development of the Japanese national security policies, and this national security policy is very interesting because of it's a comprehensive approach. When you talk about security issues, we immediately think about the article number nine of the Japanese constitution for prohibiting to use the offensive use of the force. The national security strategy is, we think about the comprehensive use of any kind of the force that is there, and on the top of this diplomacy. So diplomacy combines together our economic strengths, and of course with the defensive capacity, make this strategy a very realistic one, and very powerful one. You really are amazed to see a lot of new development that has been done in drawing the presentation of Dr. Downey. So we are talking about the GDP, and I'm talking about the difference-related GDP. We are now fixed 2 percent of the GDP in 2027, but this is part of this strategy, but also you will see a lot of interesting development, and please remind that our first prime and the first places of this strategy is diplomacy. To strengthen the diplomacy and having the new strategy helps to strengthen our already active diplomacy, and we will continue to do so. Combine both together may bring a little bit better world. I'm quite sure that you will understand better, and we see a very interesting lecture from Dr. Downey. Now I would like to invite Jean to make the presentation of Dr. Downey. Thank you very much Ambassador Maruyama. I'd like to join Barry in welcoming you all here today to this event, which is being organized in conjunction with the Embassy of Japan in Ireland. We're delighted to be joined today by Dr. Declan Downey who will speak to us for about 20 minutes or so, and then we'll have a Q&A with the audience. For those of you in the room, if you want to ask a question during the Q&A session, please raise your hand and a microphone will be brought to you. And to those of you joining us online, if you want to ask a question, please feel free to send it in at any time during the session using the Q&A function on your screens. A reminder that today's presentation and Q&A session are both on the record. And please feel free to join the discussion on Twitter or X using the handle at IIEA. So let me now formally introduce our guest speaker. Declan Downey is Assistant Professor in the School of History in University College Dublin. He was awarded a PhD in Legal and Diplomatic History from the University of Cambridge in 1993. Since 1995, he has been lecturing in European and Japanese Diplomatic History at UCD where he coordinates the BCL degree program in Law with History. In 1995, he initiated the first ever Japanese history course at degree level in Ireland at UCD. A former trustee of the Chester Beatty, he is closely involved with Japanese cultural and academic events in Ireland. His extensive publications and leading role in major international research projects have been recognized with international distinctions and awards, including the Japanese Foreign Ministers' Commendation in 2020. In autumn of 2022, Dr. Downey was the first Irish academic to be awarded the prestigious Gaimusho Visiting Scholarship, which he took up in Japan last spring. So without further ado, I will hand the floor to Dr. Downey. Your Excellencies, members of the Institute of International and European Affairs, distinguished guests, I am most appreciative of the honour to be invited to speak to you this day, and I should like to begin by expressing my sincere gratitude to the Institute's Director-General, Mr. Alex White, and to His Excellency, the Ambassador of Japan, Mr. Norio Maruyama, for their gracious invitation and hospitality. Also, I wish to thank Ms. Keiko Nakata, Dr. Barry Colfer, Mr. Keon Fitzgerald, for their discreet efficacy in organizing this event, and to Lorcan Malali, our tech wizard, who is being very helpful to me this day. And finally, I wish to thank you, Emeritus Professor John Neary, for your kind remarks and for sharing my presentation. Achieving compatibility of pacifism and self-protection Japan's National Defense Strategy. On the 16th of December 2022, the Japanese government, led by Prime Minister Kishida Fumio, launched its new National Defense Policy, called the National Security Strategy of Japan, also known as the three strategic documents. Which, despite concerns to the contrary in some quarters, has received considerable public support in Japan. Indeed, it has been greeted with relief among some of its neighbours, too. Essentially, the policy states that due to the current serious threats to the international order, and the aggressive military activities of three neighbouring countries, which it names, China, North Korea and Russia, and the severity of the unprecedented strategic challenges that they now represent, not only to the international community, but also to Japan, the nation is embarking on a broad range of protective measures concerning security issues, the economy, cyberspace and technology, to preserve its interests. So how did this situation come to pass, and how is Japan balancing her pacifism with self-protection? So let us look at the historical and constitutional context. Japan, just like Ireland, is a small island nation, though with a much larger population density, off the coast of the great Eurasian landmass, which you see there on the map. It is a different perspective from what you are normally used to in terms of the world. Japan to the Far East, Ireland to the Far West. Both countries have centuries old cultures that are quite distinctive and deeply rooted in agriculture, yet both are modern high tech societies open to global trade. In their respective national histories, both Japan and Ireland have had occasionally troubled relationships with their nearest and much larger neighbours. Since their independence in 1921, Ireland has maintained a policy of military neutrality and pacifism in foreign policy, and since the overthrow of General Tojo Hideki's militarist regime in 1945, Japan has also assiduously pursued a non-militaristic pacifist and humanitarian domestic and foreign policy. Unlike neutral Ireland or neutral Austria or neutral Switzerland, Japan, for constitutional reasons, does not even have a standing army, a navy, or an air force. So at this point, let us briefly refer to Article 9 of the Constitution of Japan and to two of the most noteworthy founding fathers of modern contemporary Japan, Shidehara Kichuro and Yoshida Shigeru. Now on that slide before I continue, just to give you that sense again of the strategic importance of Japan, off the land mass of Asia, Ireland off the land mass of Europe, and then I have for your interest there two smaller images below them. One is a 16th century map, Spanish map, of Ireland's position in relation to Spain and Flanders' commercial interests, and the other map is a Russian map from 1904 relating to Japan's strategic position as the Russians considered it of South East Asia. But let us proceed. We can come back to the maps again in discussion. So here in slide four, you see the Japanese deat receiving and presenting the new constitution to the emperor, and the smaller photograph is the image of the architect of that constitution, Shidehara Kichuro. He was a veteran diplomat and lifelong advocate of international pacifism, whom the emperor Shoah Hirohito appointed interim prime minister on the 9th of October 1945, and his premiership lasted until the 22nd of May 1946, during which time he oversaw the preparations for a general election and the drafting of the new constitution. It was his idea, and as scholars have recently established, is alone to propose the constitutional clause for the renunciation of war, what would become Article 9. Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right to the nation and the threat or use of force as a means of settling international disputes. As Koseki, Soichi and Ray Moore have demonstrated in their internationally acclaimed and prize-winning book, The Birth of Japan's Post-War Constitution, 1997, contrary to popular belief and the widely held misconception, neither President Harold Truman's administration nor General Douglas MacArthur's Supreme Command of the Allied Powers imposed the new post-war constitution on Japan. For the purposes of this presentation, it is important to bear in mind three distinctive features in Article 9 of the Constitution. The absolute prohibition of the use of military aggression, the prohibition on maintaining a full strength standing army, or other war potential, that's the quote, and the rejection of the right or claim to belligerence offensive warfare. So, the general election of 1946 swept the Liberal Democrat Party into power under its leader Yoshida Shigeru, who like Shidehara was also a veteran diplomat and opponent of militarism. Yoshida was Prime Minister from 1946 until 1954, except for a brief interlude from 1947 to 48. It was a crucially important period for Japan's socioeconomic survival, stability, recovery and growth. Yoshida worked closely with Shidehara, who was elected Speaker of the Lower House of the Dieter Parliament, and he held that position until his death in 1951. So, it is within the context of the Communist Caesar of Eastern Europe in 1945, Mao's victory over the Kuomintang in China in 1949, and the Korean War from 1950 to 53, that Japan assumed vital importance to the USA's regional defense system in the Pacific and Southeast Asia. In his preparation for negotiations that would culminate in the formal ending of hostilities between Japan and the Allied Powers in the Peace Treaty of San Francisco in 1951, Yoshida appreciated this global situation and sought to gain advantages for Japan by following a strategy in a similar context that had been pursued by the French statesman Maurice de Talleron de Pereigor in the aftermath of Napoleon Bonaparte's defeat and the Congress of Vienna in 1815. As the eminent Japanologist Kensby Pyle observed that like Talleron, Yoshida would, quote, regain by diplomacy what had been lost by war, unquote. During negotiations, Yoshida came under pressure from John Foster Dulles and others to rearm Japan and to take a more active role in the U.S.-led security system against the spread of communism in East and Southeast Asia. Yoshida was resolute in his consistent refusal of these demands and he asserted the Japanese constitution's renunciation of war. Instead, he insisted that Japan would contribute to the free world through constructive means of wealth creation diplomacy and humanitarian activity. However, realism required Japan to have some form of national security. So in 1954, the Japan self-defense forces were established, but in strictly legal terms as an extension of the national police force. Most significantly, and keep this point in mind, the constitutional phrase war potential was defined as force that exceeds the basic minimum level for self-defense. Anything at or below that level does not have the potential for aggressive war and is therefore constitutionally compliant. Japan's Supreme Court has ruled that it is in the nation's basic and fundamental right to defend itself. The use of force to maintain internal security law and order is not prohibited by Article 9. Premier Yoshida's stance in 1951 with support from General MacArthur spared Japan the expense of war. And this allowed her to profit economically from supply orders to US bases in Japan, Korea and Indochina. Also, it helped assuage fears of a possible resurgence of Japanese militarism both within Japan and abroad, especially among neighboring countries. It reassured the international community of Japan's pacifist sincerity and thereby generated goodwill towards Japan accessing international markets. Successive premiers to Yoshida were his disciples from the Yoshida Gako or Yoshida School, such as Ikeda Hayato, the renowned Sato Aisaku, Tanaka Kakoe, who initiated Sino-Japanese rapprochement, and Fukuda Yasuo. They presided over the strong political and economic recovery of Japan from the 60s right through to the end of the 70s and the rise of contemporary Japan's status as a financial superpower with international influence and respect in the G7. As the strategist and former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger observed, and I quote, Japanese decisions have been the most far-sighted and intelligent of any major nation in the post-war era. In 1955, Japan signed the Mutual Cooperation and Security Treaty with the USA. And like most of Europe, both NATO members and non-aligned, and some countries in the Middle East and Southeast Asia, Japan was content to rely upon the protection of the USA throughout the Cold War. During the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, the combination of careful socio-economic investment and innovation gave rise to the economic boom and immense prosperity of Japan during the 1980s and early 90s. Yet ironically, the collapse of the Soviet bloc and the emergence of an apparent unipolarity in 1990 when Washington assumed the role of world policemen stirred a sense of unease among the intelligent, perceptive, and questioning political and geo-strategic observers in Tokyo as indeed elsewhere. I'm referring to those who did not indulge in the group think or prevailing orthodoxy of the 90s and early 2000s. That globalization and free market capitalism would bring liberal democracy and civic society to the Russian Federation and to China. It is in this more recent and contemporary context that we can understand the gradual reinterpretation and transformation of Japan's national security policy. Ever since Japan began participating in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, ASEAN, in 1997, it has given its full support to the other member states and Japanese investment helped decisively in the composition and scale of ASEAN exports to the USA and the EU. However, with increased economic and financial involvement with and assistance to ASEAN, successive Japanese governments have also been very careful to resist the concurrent pressure from both within ASEAN as well as from Washington DC to assume a leading political leadership role. With the end of the Cold War in 1989, the decline of communism's international appeal, the disintegration of the USSR and the former Soviet bloc, and the loss of impetus for the non-aligned movement, it has become easier for Japan to emerge as a major player, not only economically but also politically in the Pacific region. However, there was a reluctance in Japan itself to accept the USA's invitation to play a major international political role as befitted its leading economic power status. Much of this reluctance derives from Japanese public opinion, which demanded that Japan would only pursue pacifist and humanitarian objectives on the world stage and to avoid political and militaristic entanglements at the behest of the USA or any other superpower. Both premiers Nakasone Yasuhiro and Kaifu Toshiki were obliged to acquiesce in such public opinion as well as constitutional legal advice when they tried respectively to align Japan too closely with US military objectives regarding the Soviet Union in 1987 and in the First Gulf War in 1991. However, that is not to say that such anti-war sentiment in Japan blinded public opinion to the harsh realities of the world and the need for investment in Japan's self-defense. And here we look now at the gradual transformation of security consciousness among the Japanese. Japan's largest neighbor, the People's Republic of China, has emerged as a superpower to challenge the USA on the global stage. During the late 1980s and the 1990s, China had received a tremendous boost as the recipient of America's most favored nation trading status. And through foreign aid, loans and investment, China thereby experienced unprecedented economic growth and as a consequence sufficient wealth to invest in its military and naval capabilities as well as nuclear weapons. Ironically, Japan was China's most generous benefactor. Indeed, when China was diplomatically isolated, albeit briefly, in the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square massacre on the 4th of June, 1989, and yes, ladies and gentlemen, that event did happen regardless of what some people are now trying to persuade us. It was the Japanese Prime Minister, Kaifu Toshiki, who ended Japan's participation in economic sanctions. He was the first leader of a major state to make an official visit to Beijing on the 10th of August, 1991. At that time, he reasoned that it would be better in the long run to help China's economic development and thereby engender better political and diplomatic relations which he thought would inevitably lead to a political and social liberalization of China that would help the country transition peacefully and seamlessly from a one-party state to a democracy. Similar thinking had inspired Premier Hosokawa Morihiro and later Premier Abe Shinzo's friendly overtures towards the Russian Federation and with a view to obtaining the return of the northern territories to Japan. They had been seized and occupied by Moscow since early September 1945. However, Japanese goodwill towards China and Russia, as well as Tokyo's endeavors to engage Beijing and Moscow in friendly, constructive, and mutually cooperative dialogue, has not been fully reciprocated. The anti-Japanese demonstrations in Beijing in 2005 over the proposal from Brazil, India, and Germany that Japan be given a permanent seat on the UN Security Council did not occur spontaneously or without the approval of the Chinese Communist Party. Subsequently in 2007, Premier Abe, alerted by Beijing's installation of medium and long-range ballistic missiles along China's coast aimed at Japan and other neighboring states, including the USA, and China's major investment benefactors and trading partners being the object of this missile installation. And the flag planting exercises that China has engaged upon on various rocks and islands beyond China's internationally recognized territorial waters. These events prompted him to initiate the quadrilateral security dialogue known as the Quad with India, Australia, and the USA to cooperate and coordinate measures for their mutual security in the face of Chinese expansionism. Matters have not been improved by the series of joint Sino-Russian military and naval maneuvers in the South China Sea, the Sea of Japan, and in the North Pacific off the coast of Hokkaido since 2014, the year Putin annexed Crimea. And of course, there is the apparent unwillingness of either Xi or Putin and their regimes to reign in their useful irritant, the North Korean Kim hereditary dictatorship, whose missile launches into Japanese territory prompted Premier Abe's revision of Japan's national security as well as his diplomatic strategy vis-à-vis Beijing and Moscow. From the foregoing details, we can understand the context in which Abe's government enacted reforms in 2014 to allow Japan's self-defense forces to participate in collective security in the Pacific region. While his advocacy of amendments to Article 9 of the Constitution to strengthen Japan's capacity and capability for self-defense had drawn opposition from some quarters in Japanese society as threatening Japanese pacifism, interestingly the opinion polls taken at the time indicated the wider public, about 73%, concurred with his argument for strengthening Japan's security, but to avoid direct confrontation with China if at all possible. Following Australia's withdrawal from the Quad under its Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in 2008, it was suspended until 2017. Regional realities necessitated its renewal, especially after China's rejection of the International Permanent Court of Arbitrations ruling on the 12th of July 2016 that China had no historic rights or legal basis to claim sea areas inside the Nine-Dash Line. These are contested islands in the South China Sea involving China, Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines. And also the Court had ruled that China had breached its obligations on the international regulations for preventing collisions at sea and Article 94 of the United Nations Convention on Law of the Sea concerning maritime safety. So Premier Abe sought to provide consolidation of security through a mutual protective network with the aim of promoting greater economic exchange and security cooperation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership in 2016, but this was opposed by both US presidential candidates at that time Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Undaunted and in the aftermath of North Korea's first successful hydrogen bomb test on the 3rd of September 2017, Premier Abe pressed ahead with the formation of the comprehensive and progressive agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership in December 2018 with Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam and the USA. That same year his government announced the acquisition of two ages assure batteries for missile defence. Within such actions we can appreciate how Japan has balanced its pacifist and economic diplomacy with international cooperation for preserving stability and security in the Pacific Rim. Now at this point I'm just going to slightly digress here to draw your attention to the strategic maps and this will explain to you even greater detail the importance of Japan's strategy for self-defense. And it'll also raise questions for Europe and indeed for Ireland. Traditionally we look at the world in this scene and we think of Europe and Africa being at the centre and Asia and the Americas on the peripheries. And there in little Ireland we think ah we're far away from all the trouble all the theatres of operations. That's the tradition of you. I also want to bring your attention here to the strategic straits for maritime trade. In the past the imperial western powers engaged in gunboat diplomacy in the 19th century particularly to gain control of the straits but over the last 25 years China has been very clever buying up properties on the straits. Most recently they attempted to buy the straits of Gibraltar but the Spanish government blocked it. So think about control of trading routes. Now there you have a map of the extent of China's missile ranges and you'll see there that the angle of the map is more polar as in the north pole. Ireland and Europe are not that far away and look at the extent they can even reach the Americas with their missiles. And that is China and we're supposed to be friendly trading countries with China and yet they have aimed their missiles at us now. That is the map of the extent of North Korea's missile range. Rocket man isn't just only focused on Japan and the South China Sea ladies and gentlemen his missile range can extend much further into Europe including Ireland and most of the USA. Want to go back to that again? We can come back to this in questions and answers. Now look at the geostrategic considerations the Arctic Circle's significance. It seems to be the lights maybe. Basically what you're looking at here ladies and gentlemen you're looking down on the Arctic Circle and what you see there is the Russian land mass and then extending into Norway across to Greenland over Canada and Alaska. The Russian fleet at Arkangelsk ladies and gentlemen as well as the Russian aircraft based there came down from Arkangelsk right through that clear passage between Iceland and Norway to the Irish coast. We're sitting ducks. When I used to go to Japan in the past I used to fly over the Arctic Circle and basically it was within 12 to 14 hours but now we have to go a much longer distance either through Doha or Abu Dhabi or else across North America. You're talking about 22 to 24 hours but that'll give you a sense of how fast one can move across the Arctic Circle into Northern Europe and especially the sea channels of Northwestern Europe which are vital for the communication cables between America and Europe. And now we look at the Pacific Rim because China's immediate interest is in gaining control of not only trade but everything else in the Pacific Rim. That ladies and gentlemen could well be the first theater of operations. Now I'm not at liberty to mention his name but a Japanese strategist very distinguished scholar in the field mentioned to me that they expect that China could get rest of in the region about 2027. We need to be prepared especially in regards to what happens in the United States next November. So we come to dealing with the inescapable realities. Following Abe's premiership in 2020 his successor the current Prime Minister Kishida Fumio has been obliged by greater urgent necessity to upscale Japan's national security while simultaneously maintaining pacifism. And so in this regard that he has hesitatingly took decisive measures and imposed sanctions on Russia immediately after Putin's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Also the coincidence of Kishida's visit to Kiev in March of 23 at the same time as the Xi Putin summit in Beijing sent a very clear signal that Japan had taken a firm stand for the rules-based international order for decency and humanitarian values. At this point it is worth bearing in mind that in 2022 North Korea launched 34 ballistic and cruise missiles into Japanese territorial waters and over Japan itself. On the 4th of October that year the Kim dictatorship fired an intercontinental ballistic missile over Japan and Premier Kishida was obliged to warn his fellow citizens in Akita, Iwate, Okinawa, Hokkaido and Aomori to take shelter. A month later on the 2nd of November North Korea launched a barrage of 23 ballistic and cruise missiles over the sea of Japan all in one day. On the 18th of November another of Pyongyang's unpleasant presence landed in Japan's exclusive economic zone. Therefore it is no wonder that on the 16th of December 2022 Premier Kishida responded to such outrageous menace by announcing a new direction in Japan's national defence, the national security strategy which he described as quote a major shift in Japan's security policy since World War II. That shift, ladies and gentlemen, includes a massive increase in the defence budget from 1% to 2% of GDP by the fiscal year 2027. It has unprecedented since 1938 and most significantly Kishida announced Japan's right and capability for effective counter-strike. The three documents, the national security strategy, the national defence strategy and the national defence buildup plan are worth reading. Regarding the AGES anti-missile system, technical and logistical difficulties with the AGES ashore system first introduced into Japan in 2017 has led to the Japanese government's decision in December 2020 to adopt the AGES offshore system and build two AGES equipped vessels. However the challenge this presented was the impossibility of protecting all of Japan from ballistic missiles every day of the year with only two AGES destroyers at sea. More ships would be required. However Premier Kishida's new security measures and updates to the ones since last year do not mention the abandonment or the replacement of AGES ashore but they do refer to the new AGES offshore vessels being increased in number to 12 and having integrated air defence and missile defence capability. As Ikeda Tohoru, the director of the National Security Institute at Fujitsu defence and national security limited and a former vice admiral of Japan's maritime self-defence force has observed this suggests two methods of deterring potential North Korean or Chinese missile attacks by seriously enhanced ballistic missile defences what we call denial deterrence or by punitive countermeasures the capability to counter strike so the national security strategy document having acknowledged the increasing difficulty to merely defend alone against missile attack states and I quote for this reason the Japanese self-defense force needs counter strike capabilities which in the case of missile attacks by an enemy enabled Japan to mount effective counter strikes against the enemy to prevent further attacks at the same time Japanese forces should be defending the islands from incoming missiles by means of missile defence network here we see again Japan is no longer leaving punitive deterrence to the USA as it had traditionally done since 1945 such is the basic minimum level for self-defense nowadays that punitive deterrence is required the swiss have armed neutrality at the heart of their national defence Japanese now have armed pacifism indeed given the current political extremities of bipartisanship in washington's capital hill and its paralyzing effect on america's ability to act decisively a situation that has malingered since 2014 japan's decision to assume greater responsibility for its national security capabilities is most wise to further bolster japan's capacity to defend its airspace in february 23 japan signed contracts for state-of-the-art fighter jets from britain and italy while spanish and japanese naval engineers are cooperating in developing greater naval capacity also last november japan india and the philippines formed a close strategic partnership for mutual security and economic progress and in this arrangement as in the previously mentioned quad and the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-specific partnership we can perceive what i would regard as a neo-westphalian system being applied in southeast asia and the pacific rim orchestrated by japan in other words ladies and gentlemen the renewal of the balance of power politics to keep the regional and potentially aggressive leviathans to invoke concept contained that this has been achieved through a combination of strategic economic technological diplomatic and security cooperation for the purpose of maintaining general peace in the region is quite a significant achievement there are lessons which the eu could learn from japan's engagement with current global realpolitik and particularly so for this island nation island with its much vaulted pacifism and neutrality the advice of the ancient roman booblius flavius renatus stills holds true to this day those who desire peace should be prepared for war as with armed neutrality which has served and continues to serve switzerland so well we should not forget or dismiss the concept of armed pacifism either at the outset of this presentation i mentioned the negotiations of the san francisco east treaty of 1951 premier yoshida had resisted pressure to remilitarize japan and to take on an active role in the us led military strategy in east asia during the cold war may i conclude with reference to the prescience of his explanation of his position to his aid miyazawa kiichi a future prime minister of japan and i quote yoshida the day for rearmament will come naturally when our livelihood recovers it may sound devious but let the americans handle our security until then so ladies and gentlemen there you have it an explanation of this remarkable transformation in japan and how they are now facing the realities of the world thank you