The Upper House of Japan approved disputed security bills on September 19. It marked the first major shift of Japan's defense policy 70 years after WWII and has triggered much controversy in the country. However, years from now when the Japanese people try to google the whole process of the security legislation, the majority of entries coming out may not be about Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, but a student group of protestors, Students Emergency Action for Liberal Democracy, known as SEALD.

SEALD is not a student organization temporarily established against the security bills, but originates in the Students Against the Secret Protection Law (SASPL) in 2013. The image of the Japanese young people has long been that they were more interested in anime than politics. But the whole society has to look at them with new eyes after these young people, mainly students, demonstrated their social responsibilities by taking to the streets in protest against the Abe administration in 2013 and led demonstrations in front of the Diet in 2015.

The domestic and external praise for SEALD reminds me of the Sunflower movement in Taiwan and the street protests in Hong Kong, both in 2014. The two movements were both primarily peopled with students, but they failed to create a positive impression on me. Aki Okuda, one of the founding members of SEALD and a Meiji Gakuin University senior, said on September 16 at The Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan that organizing SEALD was inspired by the movements in Taiwan and Hong Kong when he traveled there. But despite the connection, I believe the three movements differ fundamentally.

First, the protests in Japan proceeded completely in accordance with law while the other two did not. The Japanese Constitution formed after WWII guarantees freedom of assembly, association and speech, but it also stipulates that people shall refrain from any abuse of the freedoms and rights and should always be responsible for utilizing them for the public welfare. In this sense, Japanese citizens are empowered to demonstrate on the street, but they cannot damage the public welfare.

However, in the Sunflower movement, student activists stormed into the "Legislative Yuan" and attacked the "Executive Yuan," which seriously disrupted the operation of democracy.

In the Hong Kong protests, students occupied Central, the business and financial centre of Hong Kong, which disturbed the social order and business and financial operations. In comparison, Japanese students merely gathered in front of the Diet hall and voiced their opposition, without any illegal behavior or impact on public welfare and interest.

In addition, the Japanese student protests were clearly targeted while the other two movements had secret intentions. The Japanese students took to the streets because they cherish the hard-earned peace, oppose the government sending Japanese citizens into battles. With explicit appeals, SEALD has gained wide support from intellectuals such as constitutional scholar Setsu Kobayashi, sociologist Chizuko Ueno, former prime minister Naoto Kan, and Kazuo Shii, chairman of the Japanese Communist Party. It also obtained support from over 70 percent of the Japanese citizens. Activists in Taiwan and Hong Kong claimed to safeguard democracy and oppose backroom politics initially, but later they turned to advocating the independence of Taiwan and Hong Kong, unveiling their hidden intentions.

Moreover, the capabilities of student leaders in the three movements differ significantly. I was impressed that Okuda attended a public hearing in the Upper House on September 15 and elaborated why the protests were launched. He said what the Japanese people wanted was to safeguard Japan's 70 years of pacifism and memorize those who died in the war because they realized that otherwise Japan's constitution and democracy would not be protected. But in Taiwan and Hong Kong, when the authorities organized talks with students, the student leaders merely voiced opposition but didn't come up with any reasonable opinions. The whole movements seemed to be more like children making a scene. It's striking that Chen Wei-ting, the Sunflower movement leader, was even allegedly involved in sexual harassment incidents.

In retrospect, on the one side, the Japanese young people have displayed their maturity and rationality during the public protest against the administration. On the other side, this has also reflected how juvenile and impulsive their peers in Taiwan and Hong Kong were last year.

The author is a PhD candidate at the Graduate School of Sociology at Toyo University. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn