TOKYO — Prime Minister Shinzo Abe made his most emotional appeal yet on Thursday for rewriting Japan’s pacifist Constitution, asking for what he called the country’s “biggest reform since the end of the war.”
In the equivalent of a state of the union speech to Parliament, the first since his governing party swept national elections in December, Mr. Abe made an impassioned plea for change. At times almost seeming to shout at the chamber, the prime minister said the time had come for Japan to attempt the same kind of sweeping transformation that it accomplished after its defeat in World War II.
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After taking office, however, he became more cautious in his statements, as opinion polls showed that a majority of Japanese still opposed changing the Constitution. But his rhetoric changed after the hostage crisis involving Islamic State, which his supporters on the right have seized upon to call for freeing up Japan’s armed forces to defend its interests — not only in the Middle East but closer to home, where the rise of China is changing the region’s power balance.
