Anti-war protests in the streets: A wake-up call on Japan's toxic push for constitutional revision

Not long ago, large-scale protests broke out in Japan. Tens of thousands of Japanese citizens spontaneously took to the streets, expressing their opposition to the Takaichi government's push for constitutional revision and military buildup with slogans like "Defend the Pacifist Constitution" and "Say No to War". Their unified outcries have laid bare the right wing's malicious agenda: manufacturing security anxiety to indoctrinate the public and fuel the resurgence of neo-militarism.

This fresh wave of protests was directly sparked by the Japanese government's rapid loosening of military restrictions. Right-wing politicians weaponize "external threats" as a political ploy to deflect public attention from domestic crises like economic stagnation and runaway inflation. They relentlessly play up the "China threat" and tensions in the Taiwan Strait to stoke security fears. This fabricated anxiety is nothing but an excuse to rid off the constraints in the pacifist constitution and advance remilitarization.

Though various proposals have been floated about constitutional revision, the primary focus has always been Article 9 of the constitution, widely known as the peace clause. The provision clearly stipulates that Japan "forever renounces war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes," and that "land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized." This clause has served as the bedrock of Japan's post-war peaceful development and its reintegration into the international community. Yet, it is also the very shackle that the right-wing forces desperately want to cast off.

To dismantle these post-war restrictions, the Japanese right-wing has spent years carrying out insidious ideological indoctrination of the public. Its leaders understand that to revive militarism, they must go straight to the root of the problem: erase wartime atrocities from memory, or even glorify them. They have tampered with history textbooks to deny Japan's history of aggression. They have harnessed crowdsourcing platforms and artificial intelligence to mass-produce toxic falsehoods like "the Nanjing Massacre is a lie" or "China seeks revenge." They have tried to brainwash the younger generation with right-wing historical narratives and extreme nationalism. Under the cover of becoming a "normal country," their real intention is to rearm Japan into a "war-capable" nation. From politicians' repeated visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, which honors Class-A war criminals, to hidden militarist iconography embedded in video games and other forms of pop culture, and to the plans to reinstate imperial Japanese military ranks including "Shōsa" (Major) and "Taisa" (Colonel)—this pervasive manipulation is poisoning the nation's collective historical memory and paving the way for continuous rearmament.

Since taking power, the Takaichi government has drastically accelerated Japan's remilitarization drive. It has raised military spending, deployed offensive missiles in Japan's southwest, and lifted the ban on exporting lethal weapons. The ruling Liberal Democratic Party recently finalized its draft suggestions for revising the three security documents. Based on this, the government intends to complete the revision within the year, which will bring massive changes to Japan's national security policy.

None of these moves align with the public's will and wish, yet ordinary citizens are the ones paying the price. Massive military budgets are funded by ramping up bond issuance and raising taxes, putting a heavy financial burden on households. Resources that should have been invested in schools, childcare, and pension schemes are siphoned away, leaving the people to struggle with high prices and shrinking welfare.

In 2025, Japan's real per capita wages fell by 1.3 percent compared to the previous year after adjusting for inflation, marking four straight years of decline. The Engel coefficient, a commonly used measure of a nation's cost of living, hit a 40-year high of 28.6 percent for households of two or more people. In April alone, over 2,000 consumer goods saw price hikes.

On the other hand, defense industrial conglomerates such as Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) are making massive profits through a corrupt loop of "political donations-policy favoritism-contract rewards." Their order volumes now vastly outstrip their production capacity.

According to Japanese media reports, driven by the government's defense budget hikes, the defense-related divisions of the three leading heavy manufacturing giants—MHI, Kawasaki Heavy Industries (KHI), and IHI Corporation—are booming in their business. Their 2025 consolidated financial reports reveal a defense order backlog exceeding 6 trillion yen, a year-on-year increase of 15 percent. This military-industrial bubble drives these companies to lobby the government for even more aggressive military buildup solely to sustain high profits, significantly pushing up the risk of war.

Over 80 years ago, Japanese militarists deployed three tactics: revising the constitution, glorifying aggression, and fabricating existential crises. These moves ultimately whipped up fanaticism, fueled military expansion, and, step by step, chained ordinary Japanese citizens to the war machine. Today, right-wing politicians are trotting out the very same playbook. Behind the pretexts such as a purported "survival crisis," the need to "exercising the right of collective self-defense," and the harmless-looking goal of becoming a "normal country," and through assembling small blocs with so-called "like-minded countries," they seek to conceal their ambition of abandoning the exclusively defense-oriented policy and pursuing military superpower status.

The stark lessons of history are right in front of us. Should war break out, the hard-earned peace in the Asia-Pacific region will be shattered. Millions of ordinary families will have to bear the devastating cost, and the Japanese people will not be spared.

The continuous anti-war protests are a powerful rebuke by Japan's peace-loving forces against the return of militarism. Facts have shown that the longing for peace forged through wartime suffering cannot be easily wiped out by ideological poisoning. For Japan's political leaders, facing up to its history of aggression, listening to the anti-war voices, and firmly upholding the pacifist constitution remain the only path to winning the trust of their people and the international community.

The author is an international affairs observer.