September 29, 2024

Akahata editorial (excerpts)

The ruling Liberal Democratic Party on September 27 elected Ishiba Shigeru, former LDP secretary general, as its new president. In contrast to his presidential campaign slogans, “Protecting Japan” and “Protecting the people”, his policies will bring Japan’s peace and people’s livelihoods into a state of jeopardy.

Ishiba places constitutional revision at the top of his policy priorities to “protect Japan”. During the LDP presidential election campaign, he expressed his intent to “promote Diet deliberation on and realize the initiation of constitutional amendments while in office.” Furthermore, he proposed to enhance the Japan-U.S. military alliance and create an Asian version of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization bylaws stipulate that an armed attack against one or more of the NATO members will be considered as an attack against them all, and that in the event of such an attack, parties to the treaty will exercise the right to collective self-defense and provide assistance to the allied country or countries attacked. At the time of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 under the pretext of responding to the 9.11 terrorist attacks, NATO member countries based on the treaty supported the U.S. with various measures including sending armed forces.

Ishiba at a press conference on September 27 after his election as LDP President stressed that the essence of collective security is to fulfill member obligations as in NATO. This means that Ishiba advocates constitutional revision and the creation of an Asian-version of NATO with the aim of making it not only possible but “obligatory” for Japan to use the collective self-defense right in order to support U.S.-led wars abroad. It is unacceptable for Ishiba to take Japan down a dangerous path that will ramp up the arms race and further intensify tensions in Asia.

Ishiba during the presidential race promised to “protect people” by such means as realizing pay hikes keeping pace with inflation. However, at the September 27 press conference, he declared that he will follow the Kishida government’s economic policy which has been criticized as being useless to cope with the current cost of living crisis. In addition, Ishiba showed no remorse for ex-PM Abe’s economic policy represented by the “different dimension monetary easing” which is regarded as a crucial factor for the ongoing increase in prices. He failed to present in detail a prospect of overcoming the cost of living crisis.

It is expected that Ishiba will be nominated as new prime minister in an extraordinary Diet session scheduled to convene on October 1. He expressed his intent to dissolve the Diet to hold a general election as soon as possible. The Japanese Communist Party in the next general election will work hard to achieve a major advance by appealing to voters for their support for the party’s policy to drastically reform the anti-people LDP policies.