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Japan Press Service Co., Ltd. is the only news agency providing information of progressive, democratic movements in Japan

Ichida calls for Japan's contribution to peace and stability in Asia based on sincere remorse for the war of aggression

On August 15 marking the 61st anniversary of Japan's surrender in WW II, Japanese Communist Party Secretariat Head Ichida Tadayoshi issued the following statement:

On the occasion of the 61st anniversary of the end of World War II, the JCP expresses its deep condolences over Japanese and foreign victims of the war of aggression and colonial rule caused by Japanese militarism.

Today, Japan's diplomacy is locked in an unprecedented stalemate in Asia. Its root cause lies in the fact that Prime Minister Koizumi Jun'ichiro has visited Yasukuni Shrine every year since his assumption of office and refuses to change his position of justifying Japan's past war of aggression.

Despite the severe criticism he receives not only in Japan and from other Asian nations but also from the rest of the world, he sticks to his visits to Yasukuni Shrine, whose biggest mission is to propagandize the peculiar view that the Japanese war was right, only deepening Japan's isolation from Asia and the rest of the world.

What is needed for Japan's diplomacy now is to denounce the position of defending Yasukuni visits, based on a sincere reflection on the past war of aggression and colonial rule.

It is also grave that there is a strengthened move to revise Article 9 of the Constitution in order to turn Japan into a nation that will wage wars abroad by following the U.S. preemptive attack strategy.

We must defend the Constitution that was established on the basis of the lessons learned from and reflections made on the war of aggression, to make full use of Article 9, and to contribute to peace and friendship in Asia and the rest of the world in line with the U.N. rules for peace.

As a party that opposed the war of aggression and colonial ventures, and called for peace since the pre-war era, the JCP resolutely opposes any attempts to justify the war of aggression and colonial rule. Opposing a revision of the Constitution, the JCP will defend the constitutional principles of peace, democracy, and human rights. The JCP will do its utmost to have the U.N. rules for peace fully implemented in Asia and throughout the world.
- Akahata, August 15, 2006