Seventy-two years after the enactment of Japan's pacifist Constitution, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe renewed his pledge Friday to revise the supreme law and emphasized that he still hopes to see an amended Constitution go into effect in 2020.
"I made clear at this very forum, two years ago, that I hoped 2020 would be the year this nation sees a newly revised Constitution come into effect. That hope hasn't changed for me," Abe said in a prerecorded video message shown during a forum to discuss constitutional change hosted by a conservative grassroots group aligned with Japan Conference (Nippon Kaigi).
The pacifist Constitution has been a topic of debate because its war-renouncing Article 9 bans the country from maintaining any "war potential."