On December 19, 2025 the Japanese paper Asahi Shimbun headlined, “Senior official: Japan should possess nuclear weapons” referring to a statement by “an official who advises Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi pm security policy.” Japan has an estimated 44.4 tons of plutonium stockpile good for 5,500 nuclear bombs.
In light of the accelerating trend of Japan’s rightwing government towards aggressive militarization this is a foreboding of imminent dangers to the peace, stability and prosperity of our region, Asia, and our country – the Philippines.
Remembering Japan’s World War II Atrocities in the Philippines.
We are holding this symposium today and launching the “Anti-Japan Militarization Campaign” timed with the commemoration of the end of the long, arduous Bataan Death March of 66,000 Filipino prisoners-of-war from Bataan that culminated on April 17, 1942 upon arrival at Camp O’Donnell in Tarlac.
Filipinos must be reminded of the horrors of war that the imperialist powers imposed on the world in World War II and which the last imperial power of the 21st Century – the U.S.A. seeks to launch through proxy states in Asia to devastate the rise of the region that challenges the “Pivot to Asia” and restoration of Western Hegemony.
We must not forget the horrors of war in the massacre of civilians in Intramuros by the Japanese and the US. carpet bombing of Manila, neither should we forget the harrowing and demeaning experiences of the Filipina comfort women debased by the Japanese troops. These same militarist Japanese political forces are rearing its ugly head again.
Japan Violates Post-WWII Peace Constitution.
Japan’s post-WWII Constitution provides for Article 9, the pacifist clause, that prohibits the state from maintaining armed forces with war potential, renouncing war as a sovereign right, and banning the use of force to settle international disputes. It restricts Japan to a self-defense-only capability, but through prodding by the U.S. and Japanese militarist factions and politicians, particularly the late Shinzo Abe and now Sinae Takaichi) through interpretations have allowed for the Self-Defense Forces to grow into a threatening force.
The Japanese cabinet under the present Takichi government recently approved a record $58-billion defense budget for 2026 marking a 9.4% increase from the previous year under a plan to bolster military capabilities, acquisition of standoff missiles and drones – ostensibly as preparations against regional threats but, in reality, part of the U.S. long term “Asian NATO” strategic plan to encircle the dynamo of the Asian economic boom – China.
What can explain such recent interference of the Japanese government in China’s internal affair of Taiwan suggesting Japanese military involvement in case of conflict, followed by announcing plans to deploy surface-to-air missiles on Yonaguni Island located only 110 kilometers from Taiwan? These are nothing but provocations to raise to boiling temperature the regional atmosphere.
US “Pivot to Asia” on Japan and the Philippines.
Since 1997 the U.S. has adopted the Brezinski doctrine from his book The Grand Chessboard on maintaining U.S. hegemony by preventing the rise of a rival power in Eurasia. Russia had been tamed in the 1990s. By the first decade of the 21st Century, as the West and its capitalist economy crashed in 2008, the U.S. saw the rising China as the emerging rival power – in 2011 President Obama announced the “Pivot to Asia” to shift 60% of its military forces to the region.
The following year 2012 both Japan and the Philippines, client states of the U.S., initiated actions that planted the seeds of “permanent” tension with China that continues today: Japan’s nationalization of the Diaoyu or Senkaku Islands made it a State issue for China which was avoided when it was in private Japanese hands, and the Philippines arrested Chinese fishermen at Scarborough Shoal led to a standoff between the Philippine Navy and Chinese Coast Guard accentuating the territorial dispute.
For a decade-and-a-half now these two incidents have spun endless sensational media reports of encounters, challenges, provocation, water cannon incidents to lay the basis for the “China threat” and militarization of Japan and the Philippines with U.S. armaments and integrated with U.S. geopolitical strategy – despite both countries being the top trading partners of China, an enigma accounted for by the fact that the U.S. controls the two countries’ ruling class and presence of U.S. military bases and troops in the countries.
US Shift: “Let Asians Fight Asians”
The world is aware of the US 2025 National Security Strategy announcing the refocusing of U.S. geopolitical concentration in the Western Hemisphere and leaves Asian “allies” to rely more on their own resources, pressuring Japan to hike its military budget by as high as 9.8% and deploying missiles that can reach China. The impoverished Philippines is likewise pressed to increase its military spending, expand the number of U.S. military bases and installations, accept Tomahawk missiles and exacerbate provocations.
Article 9 of Japan’s post-WWII constitution is a “no-war” clause that renounces the sovereign right of belligerency and prohibits maintaining armed forces with offensive capability, adopted in 1946, it limits Japan to purely defensive military actions. It is no accident that Japan’s in 2012 long-ruling conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) drafted a revision changing the pacifist nature of the constitution. In 2026 Japan is deploying long-range missiles in Kumamoto in the southern region of Kyushu near China and Beijing is alerted.
Article XVIII, Section 25, of the Constitution states that “foreign military bases, troops, or facilities shall not be allowed in the Philippines except under a treaty duly concurred in by the Senate…” It is no accident again in 2012 Supreme Court Justice Corona was impeached to make way for a pliable replacement to circumvent this ban and allow the return of five U.S. military bases under an executive agreement in 2014 and expanded to 9 in 2023 – with Typhon missile launchers capable of firing nuclear-capable Tomahawk missiles.
The new U.S. policy calls to mind the Nixon Doctrine of “Let Asians fight Asians” formulated in 1969 by President Richard Nixon to shift the Vietnam War to local fighting boys from American soldiers, and ultimately to drop its local allies. Fifty-seven years later the U.S. is transferring the burden of China containment to client Asian states, particularly Japan and the Philippines with the latter’s Navy and armaments being upgraded with outdated ships and weapons from the U.S. and Japan.
Filipinos must be awakened to the U.S. military, ammo, oil depot basing strategy called ACE (Agile Combat Employment) “a U.S. Air Force operational strategy designed to increase survivability and complicate adversary targeting by dispersing forces across a network of smaller, austere locations rather than relying on large, fixed bases” making the entire Philippines a target for missile attack from US adversaries like the Gulf States are in the Iran War.
Japan’s Dangerous Nuke Talk.
Japan’s climb up the escalatory hawkish rhetoric and actions has been accelerating, aggravates the arms race. Since late 2025 official advice to Japan Prime Minister Sinae Takaichi has suggested that Japan should possess nuclear weapons. Japan could easily divert its plutonium stockpile from nuclear power plants to build 5,500 nuclear bombs. The psyche of some Japanese is typified by Ground Self-Defense Force (GSDF) soldier who broke into the Tokyo Chinese embassy with a knife to “talk” to the ambassador.
Rightwing sectors in Japan is being afflicted with what is now called “neo-militarism” of resurgent militaristic ideology and aggressive strategic policies in modern Japan reminiscent of the period prior to World War II. Likewise, in the Philippines “Amboy” (American Boys) are belligerent agitators and provocateurs supported by the network of mainstream media and US-funded social media networks and media NGOs. Now, the Philippines is being made a sidekick of neo-militarist Japan with military pacts and transfer of used Japanese warships.
These remind us of the preparation of Ukraine first by political co-optation, elevation of the neo-Nazi groups like the Azov Battalion, Right Sector and others, the build-up of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (UAF) from 130,000 men to 300,000, equipped with U.S. and NATO weapons just before the proxy war against Russia. If we recall history then we can see the same proxy war being prepared by the U.S. in Asia using its client states Japan and the Philippines. The real danger is Japan that will be raising the threat level of war at its current rate of militarization.
Stop Japan Militarization Now!
On April 9, 2026 30,000 Japanese citizens rallied near their Diet (parliament) against the revision of the pacifist Constitution. We, Filipinos, should do no less to save our Asia from the proxy war the U.S. has planned just as they did in Ukraine against Russia that destroyed the European economy and boosted U.S. fuel exports. The Iran War is another proxy war using Israel to take down the global economy and Asia along with it, although not meeting with much success.
The “Anti-War Movement” of the ACPSSII which has been mobilizing and waging an information campaign since 2023 to expose the unconstitutionality of the nine U.S. military bases and deployment of offensive missiles in the Philippines, now takes on the task of raising awareness of the dangers of Japanese militarization and the Philippines engagements with the U.S.-Japanese militaries such as defense pacts and Reciprocal Access Agreements, etc.
The “Stop Japan Militarization” campaign will be staging seminars, rallies and motorcades in key cities of the Philippines dates of which will be announced. We will reach out to ASEAN like-minded anti-war, anti-Japan militarization organizations to help in our campaign both to oust the U.S. military bases in the Philippines that violates the ASEAN’s ZOPFAN (Zone of Peace, Freedom and Neutrality) pact and “STOP JAPAN MILITARIZATION” campaign.
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