Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has secured a rare opportunity for constitutional reform following the July 10 election for the upper house of the Diet, or parliament. His ruling coalition now has a supermajority in both houses. Yet he is right to tread cautiously on constitutional change. Since many Japanese remain wary of amending a constitution that is widely seen as having brought a long period of peace, the government would be hard pressed to win a national referendum on constitutional change -- even if any proposed amendment passed both houses of the Diet with the required two-thirds majority.
If there is one factor that could help ease grassroots concerns and facilitate constitutional reform, it is American support for the process. This would help blunt criticism from Japan's powerful pacifist constituency as well as from China, which equates any potential constitutional change with Japan's remilitarization -- even as Beijing frenetically builds up its own military might.
