 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. Today I have Prabir, who is the editor-in-chief at NewsClick. We are going to discuss about the recent Japan election where President Shinzo Abe has achieved a landslide victory. We see this victory in the backdrop of the recent North Korean crisis and the move by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to remilitarize the country and amend the Article 9 of the Constitution. Prabir, is Japan moving towards militarization? Well, that's a question the Japanese people have to really answer because it would need probably a referendum in Japan to amend the Constitution, the Article 9 that you talked about. That may not be very easy because Japanese people to date have not been very favorable to both nuclearization and militarization. Both of these is what Shinzo Abe really wants. I think the important question really is what is the increasing role that Abe sees for Japan, particularly with respect to North Korea and with respect to the United States, because it's very clear that the United States today is a weakening hegemon. It has obviously still enormous military strength that should not be underestimated. Its economy is weakening and China is definitely emerging as probably in the long term the much bigger player. We have been seeing that for the last 10-15 years that the China, the global GDP, a big part of it is really contributed today by China, the growth and not by America. So it's not a question simply of how large the economies are, but at what rate they're growing because that will determine what's going to happen in the future. So if we take all that into account, Japan probably now wants to play a more important role as an independent player while being aligned with the United States. And therefore the re-militarization is a part of the larger, shall we say, the geo-strategic role that Japan may want to play in the region, both as a counter to China as an ally of the United States. I think that's where the re-militarization and also talking about the nuclear bombs, etc., is taking place. Of course, this is a part of a larger shift towards the right in a lot of the developed countries that we are seeing and also in underdeveloped, not so developed countries, for instance Turkey, India and so on. But I think therefore we need to really evaluate it both in terms of geo-strategic vision that Japan or the Japanese elite now want to have and also the internal politics of Japan. Recently we have seen that United States admitting that it has deployed large number of nuclear warheads in Okinawa base in Japan during the Cold War period. Will the militarization of Japan can be a problematic thing for United States? And will it push towards more of Japan still keeping its self-defense force rather than offensive force and U.S. playing a more active role in the region? You know, if we see the Japanese Constitution, it had actually barred nuclear weapons on its territory. Okinawa is Japanese territory. The United States took a position. It will not disclose what it has. And therefore they are not bound to say whether they have nuclear weapons in Okinawa. Neither are we going to say that if any nuclear submarine or if any warship or if any aircraft lands in any country, whether it is carrying nuclear weapons or not. And obviously the ships and submarines did carry nuclear weapons, particularly the submarines. So, this was a fiction used to maintain that we are not bringing nuclear weapons where they are not there. But in reality, nuclear weapons were positioned in Japan as well as you said in Okinawa as well on the periodic visits. Japan has always had protested against this. There is a huge peace movement. They protest every time Japanese ports saw nuclear submarines visit them from the United States. So, this has been a larger battle which has been going on. I think both for Japan and for the United States, militarization of Japan is seen to be something which is desired. Because they see this as a containment of China policy. United States today does not see Japan as a threat. Therefore, rearmament militarization would be very much in tune with what Trump says. Let them pay the cost of their own defense. Let them also bear the burden of defense that we do, which as you said is not defense, it's really offense. So, this is one part of it. I don't think the United States has any problems with Japan becoming militarized. And the problem is going to be all those countries in the region who saw Japanese occupation during the Second World War and still bear the scars of it, particularly Korea. Korea had both North and South, both parts of Korea and Japanese occupation. So, Japan is not exactly loved by the Koreans. It's not loved by a lot of other people as well, including the Chinese, as you know. In the Second World, Japan invaded China as well. So, I think those are the issues that we have to look at. What will be the impact of Japan's militarization on countries and people who looked upon Japan as the aggressor, as a war criminal, and who really did large-scale violence, massacres in these countries. So, I think Japan has been very reluctant to accept these issues. They are passed. And even today, as you know, some of the places where Shinzo goes to worship the ancestors and so on are very deeply connected to militarized past of Japan and therefore also very controversial abroad. So, those are the things that we have to see. I don't think the United States is really going to object to Japan militarizing. I think they would really welcome it. The victory of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, what impact will it have on the recent North Korean crisis which is happening in the region? Well, let's first rephrase it as a North Korean crisis. It's really a crisis which has been imposed on North Korea by the United States for the last 60 years. And North Korea has been reactive. And in this reaction, whether they could have been more strategic is an open question. Both Chinese and Russians have told them that they think that North Korea is not being strategic enough. So, DPRK Korea, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, has also in that sense taken steps which could be construed as aggressive. Such as ballistic missile launches, nuclear explosion, test explosions and so on. And the rhetoric coming out of North Korea has also been, shall we say, similar to what Trump has been doing. Or the United States has been doing for a long time because this is, Trump may be more crude in his rhetoric, but Obama said almost the same thing regarding North Korea, bombing North Korea, annihilating North Korea. All the statements have come from all US presidents. As I said, phrased more injudiciously by Trump, if you will. I think Shinzo Abbott's statement, just after he won, that he's going to solve the North Korean crisis and he's going to be much more aggressive towards North Korea, does show that he's going to align far more with Trump policies, which is one of threatening and hoping that North Koreans will cave in, that North Koreans will surrender. We have to recognize that though this policy is not working, that North Koreans do not so show any signs of then surrendering, which is exactly what Trump and others are asking in the United States. But it is also true that while the intent may not be to go to war, the climate of tensions, the climate of rhetoric, the climate of threat means that any small mistake by anybody can lead to a nuclear exchange and a war, which in which case millions of North Koreans would die, South Koreans would also be badly affected. It's a soul itself, people say 200,000 people would be dead in any exchange, any war. And Japan is also not going to come unscathed because North Korea, if it launches even one nuclear bomb, if it does, that the most likely target to Japan if Shinzo becomes a party to the American war machine. So I think this is also this kind of statement which Abbey is making regarding North Korea is only worsening the crisis and Japan which should play or has the ability to play a more geostrategic role, a bigger diplomatic role to calm down tensions, not militarize the Korean Peninsula, debilitarize the conflict. I think that is the role we would expect its statesmen to play. It does not look like that Abbey Shinzo is really going to play that role. In fact, what is more likely that he is going to play shall we say a accompanist role to Trump. And that's not good for the region.