Tokyo Protests Japan’s PM Push to Scrap Pacifist Charter
Close to 1,000 demonstrators turned out for the demonstration, brandishing placards bearing messages such as "Oppose war, defend the Constitution" and "No war, no Takaichi." Crowds filled the air with chants of "No constitutional revision" and "Protect peace," reflecting deep public unease over the government's shifting security posture.
Protester Chiharu Tomiyama told reporters that Takaichi had long championed constitutional revision well before ascending to the premiership, and that her latest push needed to be halted. A fellow demonstrator identified as Koyama warned of darker implications, arguing that mounting defense expenditures were coming at the direct expense of ordinary citizens' quality of life. The Takaichi administration, he said, was steering Japan toward militarization — a trajectory he described as deeply alarming.
Younger voices were equally prominent in the crowd. A woman in her 20s expressed fear that tampering with the pacifist Constitution would erode the foundations of peace, adding a sobering historical note — that Japan, which once waged wars and invaded China, was a country that destroyed peace, and that Article 9 of the Constitution must be protected.
That article, enshrined in Japan's Constitution since it took effect in 1947, commits the Japanese people to permanently renouncing war as a sovereign right and forswearing the threat or use of force in resolving international disputes — a clause that has defined the country's postwar identity for nearly eight decades.
Takaichi, formally designated prime minister by parliamentary vote earlier this month, wasted little time reaffirming her intention to pursue constitutional change — a declaration that has since triggered mounting anxiety across broad segments of Japanese society.
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