AHC: get Japan to adopt Switzerland-style neutrality

Article 9 prohibits Japan to have a military, but lax interpretations have led to the country participating in the military actions spearheaded by others. How could Japan get into a reverse situation: a legally existing defensive military that never participates in international missions and/or alliances?
 
Difficult because of course Japanese pacifism wasn't originally voluntary - it was the policy of an occupying power under the terms of unconditional surrender. As a result, there has always (and always will be, in the foreseeable future) a revanchist Japanese right wing that vigorously opposes pacifism, and there has consequently always been a liberal wing that upholds pacifism. The presence of an army, not that army's neutrality, is the big sticking point. So you'd need to change the fundamental premise of the issue to change attitudes in the way you want - which, of course, is implied by any "reverse" AHC.

You'd need to find a very specific point in history: a time between the US keeping close official watch and the total normalisation of the "New Japan" that ensured the continued dominance of the liberal position, at least up until the crash. I'd say that's sometime in the 1960s. Then you would have relatively inoffensive nationalist elements infiltrate the LDP; the roundabout way, but maybe the most plausible, might be to bolster the Japanese left, and spook the Americans enough with that to make them encourage the rightward drift of the LDP.

So I think the perfect time for this would have been the 1968 protests, part of the global shitstorm that put the CIA on edge and empowered right-wing reaction everywhere on Earth. Have Japan's 1968 Anti-War Day become an even bigger deal (apparently 4.5 million people showed up to the protests, but like all the '68 protests it eventually descended into disorganised violence), and then get the CIA, thinking that the liberal faction hasn't done enough to quell Socialist sentiment, to swing from Japanese pacifism to moderate Japanese nationalism. LDP drifts rightward -> rightward politicians advocate for a standing army, amend the constitution -> armed neutrality as a possible, but maybe still unlikely, consequence.
 
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Difficult because of course Japanese pacifism wasn't originally voluntary - it was the policy of an occupying power under the terms of unconditional surrender. As a result, there has always (and always will be, in the foreseeable future) a revanchist Japanese right wing that vigorously opposes pacifism, and there has consequently always been a liberal wing that upholds pacifism. The presence of an army, not that army's neutrality, is the big sticking point. So you'd need to change the fundamental premise of the issue to change attitudes in the way you want - which, of course, is implied by any "reverse" AHC.

You'd need to find a very specific point in history: a time between the US keeping close official watch and the total normalisation of the "New Japan" that ensured the continued dominance of the liberal position, at least up until the crash. I'd say that's sometime in the 1960s. Then you would have relatively inoffensive nationalist elements infiltrate the LDP; the roundabout way, but maybe the most plausible, might be to bolster the Japanese left, and spook the Americans enough with that to make them encourage the rightward drift of the LDP.

So I think the perfect time for this would have been the 1968 protests, part of the global shitstorm that put the CIA on edge and empowered right-wing reaction everywhere on Earth. Have Japan's 1968 Anti-War Day become an even bigger deal (apparently 4.5 million people showed up to the protests, but like all the '68 protests it eventually descended into disorganised violence), and then get the CIA, thinking that the liberal faction hasn't done enough to quell Socialist sentiment, to swing from Japanese pacifism to moderate Japanese nationalism. LDP drifts rightward -> rightward politicians advocate for a standing army, amend the constitution -> armed neutrality as a possible, but maybe still unlikely, consequence.

But, for it to become a "Swiss" situation, the US forces would have to pull out of Japan. That doesn't seem likely to happen, as far as I can see, if the CIA is even MORE worried about crazy leftists taking over Japan.
 
The idea that article 9 was imposed by the American occupation authorities is nothing but a myth perpetrated by the Japanese right. In fact, all historical evidence points out to the fact that the article was the initiative of prime-minister Kijuro Sidehara and was born out of a genuine desire by the Japanese people to avoid the errors of the past.

Pacifism was arguably the sole thing that kept the Japanese left alive while the LDP achieved extremely positive economic results with a highly interventionist economic policy and a strong welfare state. They didn't have much that they could complain about, but still, millions of people voted for the Japanese left wing solely for the purpose of stopping the LDP's plans of re-militarization.

Swiss-style neutrality is difficult because Japan was always in the US sphere. But avoiding the military legislation that allows for intervention is very easy. You even need to have the Japanese left in power. The LDP was a very factionalized party from the beginning and there were (and still are) plenty of non-hawkish members
 
Did anti-American right wing parties exist in the 60-s? I'm thinking of an unholy alliance between moderate leftists and anti-American right. One component I forgot to mention was a legal domestic production of weapons systems, including short-range fighters. A strong industry that can equip the JSDF, should someone actually want to wage war on Japan.
 
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The idea that article 9 was imposed by the American occupation authorities is nothing but a myth perpetrated by the Japanese right. In fact, all historical evidence points out to the fact that the article was the initiative of prime-minister Kijuro Sidehara and was born out of a genuine desire by the Japanese people to avoid the errors of the past.

It should be noted that this isn't excactly the consensus among scholars. The truth is probably that there were quite few people who had something similar in their mind. MacArthur himself seem to have preferred a model where Japan was to be both unarmed and neutral for example. He was probably quite familiar with the Philippine Constitution whose article II section 2 is very similar to Article 9 in the Japanese constitution. Some MacArthur's advisors from the SCAP's Government Section also seem to have suggested something similar. Among conservatives there were also those who had great distrust towards "Red Fascists" ie. former members of military elite which made accepting restrictions on the Japanese military easier to them, especially when they were able to change the wording of the article to the slightly less restricting one during debates in the Diet, the so-called Ashida Amendment. The new Japanese elite came also mostly from the bureucracy (which had largely survived purges) and most of them probably didn't mind that their old rivals in the military were made non-entities in the Japanese politics by this move.
 
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The problem is that except for a few eccentrics on the nationalist far right, the advocates of neutrality in postwar Japan were mostly Socialists--and for the Socialists (especially in the left wing of the party) their struggle for neutrality and against the US Security Treaty was part of a struggle against militarism, which led them to reject any notion of armed neutrality:

"The view is not indeed unknown in Japan that the principle of her foreign policy should be armed neutrality. This 'school', reminiscent of Swiss advocates of 'belligerent neutrality', is fortified by the arguments discussed above. It has had little appeal on the Left. Although the Socialist Party split in 1951 was over the issue of the Security Treaty and rearmament, only one of the members of the RSP [Right Socialist Party] (and no one from the LSP [Left Socialist Party]) openly advocated the combination of armed force with neutrality. This was Nishimura Eiichi, who expressed his views in party publications and documents in 1951. He believed that a Security Treaty should be accepted and the United States should bear the financial burden required to establish Japanese forces. After three years American troops should be withdrawn and should hand over their equipment and facilities to the new, independent Japanese defence forces, This period should be used by Japan for rearmament so that she could deter aggression without entering a mutual security arrangement.

"A better known advocate of armed neutrality was an extreme rightist member of the Upper House of the Diet, Tsuji Masanobu, who in 1952 first elaborated a theory of armed neutrality. While Tsuji was an advocate of a kind of anti-Western nationalism more influential in the prewar than the postwar period, his views paralleled in certain ways those of neutralists on the left wing. Thus he doubted whether, in case of war, the United States would defend Japan, since, he argued, a war would probably promote isolationist tendencies in the United States. (It should be noted that this view was put forward before the ICBM made American cities subject to the threat of nuclear attack - a factor which might be held to reinforce his argument.) He cited doubts prevalent at the time about American intentions - doubts prompted by the 'indiscretion' of the United States Secretary for War, K. C. Royall, in 1949, who hinted that the American commitment to Japan might be withdrawn -- and concluded that the United States could not be relied upon to defend Japan. He also noted that it was Soviet policy to 'use Asians to make Asian revolutions,' and that the Soviet Union had neither directly participated in the Korean War nor given significant aid to Communist China.

"These arguments were similar, as were the views of some Europeans, to those of Japanese left wing advocates of neutralism. Why then, do Japanese neutralists not draw conclusions from their arguments similar to those of Tsuji, De Gaulle or the Swiss?

"The answer lies in the pacifist philosophy championed by most sections of the JSP. Given this philosophy, it follows that the concept of deterrence cannot seriously be entertained, and alleged dangers inherent in national weakness have to be denied. Conversely, it follows that the alleged danger of ’provoking* other nations by a show of armed force should be stressed. In the circumstances of the 1950’s these arguments were used principally against the Mutual Security Treaty, but they apply equally strongly to the hypothetical case of an armed but independent Japan, especially if she were armed with nuclear weapons."

J. A. A. Stockton, 'The neutralist policy of the Japan Socialist Party" https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/bitstream/1885/126282/6/b16498756_Stockwin_J_A_A_Vol1.pdf
 

Khanzeer

Banned
That could be the case if genuine pacifist movement started in japan leading to abolition of monarchy post ww2
 
Swiss neutrality seems difficult.

Austrian Neutrality is more plausible. If Japan were jointly occupied by the various powers, the countries could agree to leave Japan as a unified but demilitarized and neutral state rather than have it be divided by the Americans and Soviets into two countries.

If Japan were to be made into a neutral country, I don't think the United States would return Okinawa in 1971. The US is going to want to retain the keystone of the pacific.
Maybe the US keeps it and makes it a commonwealth, or alternatively it could be given to the Republic of China (as FDR proposed but Chiang rejected).



But there's the issue of US defense strategy. The US wants Japan under it's security umbrella for the purpose of containing the Soviets. Maybe if Japan is neutral, the US puts a lot more priority on South Korea, Okinawa, and the RoC.
 
It seems like everyone here is missing or ignoring the possibility of pre-war PoDs in establishing an armed but neutral Japan. It seems to me that it would be easier to go back to as early as the Meiji Restoration (yes, I know that's before 1900) to change Japanese policy away from expansionism, or to change the outcome of the wars Japan was involved in before World War II so that it isn't successful. Either of those seem like they could plausibly (if not necessarily likely) lead Japan into a policy of neutrality, while leaving a tinge of militarism around to encourage the Japanese military to be relatively substantial.
 
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