The Scrapping of Japan's Peace Constitution comes at the Cost of the Working People of Asia and the Pacific

Resist US-Led War Movement, as a global network struggling for just peace against US military aggression, condemns the attempted revision of Article 9 in the Japanese constitution and drive towards militarization of the Trump/Takaichi tandem.

As Japan marks 79 years since the enactment of its Constitution, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has signaled a renewed push to amend Article 9,  which expressly renounces war as a means to resolve international disputes while allowing Japan the right to self-defense. This revision effort is directly linked to Japan’s growing militarism, which is both dictated and supported by U.S. military strategy in the Asia-Pacific. As the U.S. prepares for potential war with its self-declared biggest rival, China, Japan has become a key player in the U.S.-led war strategy, particularly within the “island chain” designed to counter Beijing. However, this shift does not benefit the Japanese people; instead, it subordinates their security and welfare to U.S. strategic interests.

The First Island Chain and Japan’s Role

Since the U.S. announced its so-called “Pivot to Asia” in 2012, the primary front of U.S. militarization has been this region. Central to this effort is the “Island Chain Strategy,” which reduces countries to pawns on a Pacific chessboard of war. The First Island Chain begins off the northwest coast of Malaysian Borneo, running along Palawan and Luzon in the Philippines. Its other end stretches from South Korea through Jeju Island and Sasebo in Japan, then through Okinawa and the Ryukyu Arc, with both ends meeting at Taiwan. These countries host some of the U.S.’s most significant military bases, including 43,000 personnel at Camp Humphreys in South Korea; 30,000 troops across Okinawa; and tens of thousands of rotational troops in the Philippines. They also host deadly missile systems such as THAAD in South Korea and Tomahawk missiles in Japan.

To justify its militarization, the U.S. portrays China’s rise as aggressive, fostering a new Cold War mentality. Meanwhile, the U.S. already occupies many Asian countries with permanent bases, rotational troops, and deployed weapons. Aggressive U.S. war games in the South China Sea, conducted alongside regional militaries, aim to provoke and prepare for a war with China fought in the interest of the U.S. imperialist class.

The U.S. Has Always Pushed Japan to Abandon Its Peace Constitution

Military agreements forged after WWII enable the U.S. to station more troops in Japan than anywhere else in the region. One-fifth of Okinawa’s land is occupied by U.S. bases. Right-wing Japanese governments have pushed for constitutional changes allowing Japan to re-arm offensively, leading to rising defense spending since 2007 and a doubling of the budget by 2023.

As part of its Island Chain strategy, the U.S. has enlisted Japan as a junior imperialist ally. In line with the Pivot to Asia, the U.S. continually rolls out new agreements. The Japan-U.S.-Korea alliance (JAKUS) and Japan-Philippines-U.S. alliance (JAPHUS) expand the U.S. military’s network, formalizing regular war games, enhancing intelligence-sharing and missile integration targeting China, and creating an anti-China economic bloc. These measures amount to an iron web of alliances in preparation for war against China.

Concurrently, 2026 marked Japan’s largest participation in Balikatan, the U.S.-led multilateral war exercises in the Philippines. Japan sent around 1,400 troops and warships, a historic step in Japan’s militarization since WWII. All Japanese Self-Defense Forces units participated in field training and missile launch exercises in the Philippines and its surrounding seas, marking the first time Japanese troops were in the Philippines since Japan’s WWII invasion. The Japanese occupation in countries of the Asia and the Pacific during or until WWII configured one of the bloodiest chapters of colonialism and imperialism in modern history. Filipino and Korean comfort women, women or girls who were forced into sexual slavery by Japanese soldiers as part of a system operated by the Imperial Japanese Army in its occupied territories between 1937 and 1945, are still seeking justice for the crimes committed during Japanese occupation and instead of accountability for these crimes, Japan is repositioning itself for the next world war scenario.

This War Won't Benefit the Japanese People or the Peoples of the Asia-Pacific

The second Trump administration has further intensified Japan’s role as its junior partner. The U.S. National Security Strategy (NSS) released in November 2025 mentions Japan five times: encouraging India to step up in “the Quad” (which includes Japan); calling on Japan to adopt trade policies that rebalance China’s economy; noting Japan’s foreign assets can be used to develop (read: exploit) the Global South; warning Japan will suffer if China controls the South China Sea; and urging increased defense spending to protect the First Island Chain.

Although the push to scrap Japan’s pacifist constitution is wrapped in the populist language of defending against the “Chinese threat,” this militarist turn serves only U.S. and Japanese ruling classes' strategic interests, not the Japanese people, nor any nation in the Asia-Pacific. By abandoning diplomacy and peaceful solutions, the Japanese ruling class is willingly moving its own people toward what is set to be the most destructive war in history, acting as Washington’s junior partner in provoking global conflict.
In response, Japan’s anti-war movement has persistently opposed this escalation towards war, exposing it for what it is. Recalling the atrocities committed by Japanese imperialism across Asia and the Pacific, the movement continues to demand a genuine peace constitution, one rooted in Japan’s own sovereign will and that respond to its people and to protect a genuine and independent peaceful foreign policy in the region, not one dictated by U.S. military aggression.

The path Japan is on, remilitarization under the guise of "self-defense" to protect U.S. and Japanese imperialist interests, leads only to ruin for working people across Japan, China, Korea, the Philippines, and the wider region. The only beneficiaries are the U.S. and Japanese ruling classes, along with Japanese War and Weapons corporations like Mitsubishi Heavy and IHI, which are already profiting from Japan’s lifting of its ban on lethal weapons exports. The real threat is the U.S.-led drive toward war, enabled by a Japanese ruling class that has learned nothing from the devastation of 1945. Genuine security will never come from imperialist missiles and military bases, but from solidarity among working people and the pursuit of national and social liberation.