The New York Times Editorial Page Discovers Originalism---In Japan

Mr. Abe has long argued for changing the Constitution on the grounds that Japan should assert itself as a “normal” country, freed of postwar constraints imposed as a consequence of its wartime atrocities and defeat. He now has another argument for expanding the military’s role: Japan, the world’s third-largest economy after the United States and China, needs to be a fuller partner with the United States in countering China as it increasingly challenges the conflicting claims of Japan and other countries in the South China and East Asia Seas. Washington has long urged Tokyo to assume more of the regional security burden.

What stood in Mr. Abe’s way was Article 9 of the Constitution. It says the Japanese people “forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes.” Any change should have required a constitutional revision, which would mean winning two-thirds approval in both houses of Parliament, followed by a referendum. Instead, Mr. Abe circumvented that process by having his government reinterpret the Constitution.

It's interesting how skeptical the Times is about such interpretive methodologies in Japan given its insistence on its own right to reinterpret the U.S. Constitution to mean whatever it wishes on any given day.