April 1, 2025

Visiting U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, at a joint press conference held on March 30 in the Defense Ministry building after meeting with his Japanese counterpart Nakatani Gen, with a potential Taiwan emergency in mind said, “Japan would be on the ‘front lines’ of any contingency we might face in the Western Pacific.”

The White House and the Pentagon claim that China will have the capability to annex Taiwan by force by 2027. Hegseth’s statement blatantly indicates that the U.S. government intends to “deter” China’s military by putting Japan on the front lines of a war between the U.S. and China.

If Japan were to be on the front lines of a U.S.-China military conflict, it could become a target for counterattacks. In the first place, it is a violation of the Constitution for Japan to use military force overseas.

Japanese Communist Party Executive Committee Chair Tamura Tomoko, at a news conference in the Diet building on March 31, noted that Hegseth even went so far as to say, “Those who long for peace must prepare for war.” Tamura warned, “The preparation for war helps lead to a cycle of military-to-military reaction and escalation.” She demanded that the government of Japan strongly criticize the statements Hegseth made.

Tamura stated that the JCP has been stressing the need to build good relations with China through diplomacy based on the 2008 Japan-China joint statement which states that the two countries are cooperative partners and do “not pose a threat to each other.” She said, “In order to create an East Asia free from the fear of war, what is needed is Japan’s commitment to carry out ‘peace diplomacy’ from the standpoint of the war-renouncing Article 9 of the Constitution.”