The following is from an article by Editorial Board Chairman Masato Inui that appeared on the front page of the Sankei Shimbun on January 1, 2022, under the title "At the beginning of the Year."
Farewell to "happily in the dark" Constitution
Happy New Year to you all.
I look forward to working with you again this year.
One of the pleasures of the New Year's holiday is to look at the New Year's greeting cards, one by one, with these mundane words of congratulations written on them, but it has come to an end in a flash.
Well, I've given up because I don't get along well with people, and they don't like me, but even in Japan as a whole, the number of New Year's cards has plummeted to less than half of what it was at its peak.
The peak year was 2003 when 4,459,360,000 cards were issued, but the initial number of cards issued for 2022 was 1,825,360,000.
While 35 cards were issued per capita, the number has dropped to 14.5, or about 40%.
The biggest reason is that the rapid spread of smartphones has brought us into the age of social networking, and the number of young people who take the time and effort to write New Year's cards to wish each other a happy new year has plummeted.
Many companies and acquaintances said they stopped worrying about people who couldn't feel "congratulations" because of the long-lasting corona illness, even if they were not young people. (although in the case of companies, it is more of a cost-cutting measure).
But this country is a "happy" country.
Really.
At least for the New Year, I would like to talk about something cheerful.
Life expectancy increases despite the corona disaster
According to the latest world health statistics released by the World Health Organization (WHO) last year, the average life expectancy of Japanese people was 84.3 years, beating second-ranked Switzerland by almost one year.
Incidentally, the U.S. ranks 40th and China 48th.
It was 77.0 years old (2020) in the United States and was shrunk by 1.8 years due to the Corona disaster.
In Japan, life expectancy has increased despite the corona disaster, and babies born today will live seven years longer than in the United States.
Nearly 80% of the people have now completed the corona vaccination, which delayed significantly, and the vaccination rate has become one of the highest in the world.
The financial assets held by individuals increased by 5.7% from the previous year to 1999.8 trillion yen.
That's nearly 16 million yen per capita, the second largest globally (although I have no connection to it).
Above all, I am happy that we have lived in peace for more than 76 years since the end of World War II without exchanging arms with any other country.
The problem is that the peace has been so long that it is utterly unprepared for an "event of an emergency."
The Great Hanshin Earthquake, the Aftermath of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, and the Corona disaster have demonstrated the inadequacy of the government's initial response to "emergencies."
The lessons learned from these two earthquakes have allowed us to progress in dealing with earthquakes and wind and flood damage, but our preparations for war have been slow in coming.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the normalization of diplomatic relations between Japan and China.
It isolated China from the West during this period due to the Tiananmen Square incident.
Still, the Japanese government saved China by resuming yen loans and allowing the Emperor of Japan to visit China.
It was a colossal blunder that amounted to "happily in the dark," but in the more than 30 years since the incident, China has become a powerful "monster nation" and a threat to the world.
Unfortunately, not a few Japanese are turning a blind eye to this reality.
Be wary of Xi Jinping's dream.
As the Science Council of Japan (SCJ) stated, there is still a strong tendency not to conduct military research at universities. At the same time, there is no end to the number of researchers who go to China to help build up the People's Liberation Army.
The world has entered a new Cold War era in which "democracies," led by the United States, and "authoritarian rule states," directed by China and Russia, face off against each other.
It is indisputable that Ukraine and Taiwan are at the forefront of the struggle between the two camps.
We must not underestimate President Xi Jinping's dream of a unified Taiwan.
As the precedent set in Hong Kong shows, there is a good chance that a "Taiwanese emergency" will occur very soon.
There is no preparation for the evacuation of Japanese residents in Taiwan or the Sakishima Islands residents, including the Senkaku Islands, in the event of an emergency.
If the Constitution and current laws are getting in the way of contingency planning, politicians' mission is to change them.
This year, the Diet, the highest organ of state power, must seriously debate the revision of the Constitution.
We don't need another "happily in the dark" constitution that says we should "trust in the justice and faith of peace-loving peoples" for the nation's security.
