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2022 June 8 - 14 TOP3 [JCP]

JCP publishes July Upper House election platform

Japanese Communist Party Chair Shii Kazuo on June 8 held a press conference in the Diet building to announce the party’s platform for the House of Councilors election next month. Shii said that the JCP will appeal to voters to support the party for firmly sticking to its Program’s principle of protecting freedom and peace.

Shii said that the platform was compiled in line with the Program’s principle and consists of three pillars: create peace in East Asia as well as in every corner of the globe through peace diplomacy based on the war-renouncing Article 9 of the Constitution; shift away from neoliberalism toward a “people-oriented and genuinely strong economy”; and pursue a democratic Japan where the people are the protagonists.

The platform describes political tasks for the JCP as follows:

Create peace in East Asia as well as in every corner of the globe through peace diplomacy based on the war-renouncing Article 9 of the Constitution
- oppose any attempt to revise Article 9 and to employ a combative approach toward threats which will drag Japan into war;
- realize the JCP vision seeking to make East Asia a peaceful region in cooperation with ASEAN nations;
- call on the international community to unite on the single issue of pushing Russia to stop its invasion of Ukraine and comply with the UN Charter;
- build a Japan willing to participate in the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and take a lead in efforts to achieve a world without nuclear weapons; and
- put an end to the construction of a new U.S. base in Okinawa and achieve a drastic revision of the Japan-U.S. Status of Forces Agreement.

Shift away from neoliberalism toward ‘people-oriented and genuinely strong economy’
- lower the consumption tax rate to 5%, stop the implementation of the consumption tax invoice system, and change the government to one working to support people’s livelihoods and businesses;
- realize wage hikes with the use of a portion of large corporations’ internal reserves and increase the minimum hourly wage to 1,500 yen in tandem with support for small- and medium-sized enterprises;
- improve education and social welfare systems with measures, such as discontinuation of cuts in pension benefits and introduction of a free school-meal program;
- tackle the climate crisis by such means as swiftly ending nuclear power generation, withdrawing from coal-fired thermal power, and increasing Japan’s energy self-sufficiency rate with a mass use of domestic renewables;
- stick firm on gender equality in every field; and
- protect people’s livelihoods based on a policy of taking a scalpel into the aberrant politics centering on the demands of the corporate and financial lobbies.

Pursue a democratic Japan where the people are the protagonists
- change the current political course which is excessively subservient to the U.S.;
- reform policies centering on demands of the business circles and large corporations and build an “economic society governed by rule”; and
- promote social transformation based on the consensus of a large majority of the general public and the force of a united front movement.