All-Japan Federation of Students’ Self-Governing Associations [Zengakuren]
Antiwar Youth Committee
Japan Revolutionary Communist League (Revolutionary Marxist Faction) [JRCL (RMF)]
Working people all over the world!
On the 4th of August, which is the sixty-eighth summer since US imperialism dropped nuclear bombs onto Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we are going to hold the 51st International Antiwar Assemblies in seven major cities across the country. Let us fight in unity to shatter ‹wars and poverty› imposed on the toiling masses all over the world!
Currently in Japan, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who justifies Japan’s invasion of Asian countries in the past war, is now in an attempt to eliminate the ‘war-renouncing’ Constitution of Japan. He is taking along, as a booster, the leader of Japan Restoration Party, Toru Hashimoto who made inadmissible remarks: ‘A comfort women system is necessary’ to let soldiers ‘have a rest’. Abe’s target is to establish a Constitution suitable for a militarily ‘strong country’ that is capable of waging wars along with the US.
Moreover, the Abe government is carrying on nuclear development on the basis of a strategy of maintaining ‘potential possession of nuclear weapons.’ It pays no attention to the hazardous situation of TEPCO’s Fukushima No.1 nuclear plant ceaselessly scattering about radioactive substances. It gives no consideration to the 154,000 evacuees suffering from radioactive pollution and poverty. This government has eyes only for the quick re-opening of nuclear plants and is hell-bent on the exportation of Japan-made nuclear plants to the world.
Comrades all over the world!
In Japan, we are promoting the struggle to stop the revision of the Japanese Constitution, the struggle against the strengthening of the new US-Japan military alliance and the struggle against the strengthening of US military bases in Japan including the ones in Okinawa, together with the struggle to stop the re-opening and the exportation of nuclear plants. Raising the banner of ‘Down with the neo-fascist Abe government’, we are in the forefront of the toiling masses in Japan. Comrades! Now is the time to unite worldwide to stir up the flame of antiwar struggles!
(1)
The first summit meeting between President Obama of the declining imperialism and new Chinese President Xi Jinping was held on June 7th and 8th. The meeting was staged on the west coast of North America seeing the Pacific Ocean just nearby. This informal meeting lasted for eight hours ushered in a new and severer confrontation between the two states competing for dominance over the Asia-Pacific region.
At the press conference, Obama said, ‘the United States welcomes the continuing peaceful rise of China as a world power.’ But at the same time he was in readiness for the US-Japan joint military exercise ‘Dawn Blitz 2013’ designed for an ‘emergency’ on the disputed Senkaku (Diaoyu) Islands, which was to start immediately after the meeting (June 11th) on the coast of California close to the meeting place. A request from China to cancel the exercise had been rejected. To show off the conspicuous and overwhelming military power of the US was what Obama intended to do. In reaction to it, Xi stated that ‘the vast Pacific Ocean has enough space for the two large countries of China and the United States’. In this way, Xi, being proud of China as a ‘major power that rises in the East’, claimed to win a half of the Pacific Ocean in rivalry with the US.
US imperialism and China are at daggers drawn on either side of the Pacific Ocean. The confrontation between them is increasing military tension in East Asia.
In a bid to contain China aiming at being a ‘superpower of the 21st century’, the Obama administration is rushing headlong towards establishing a military encirclement against China. A core of the Obama’s attempt is to form a multilateral alliance with Asia-Pacific countries centring around the new US-Japan military alliance as the cornerstone, especially to form a triangular alliance between the US, Japan and South Korea.
Due to the miserable defeat in war on Afghanistan and Iraq, the US administration has been forced to run away from the Middle East region. This defeat has left a huge amount of government debt so much so that the Obama administration is obliged to cut the military budget by more than $500 billion within 10 years. For this reason, the administration is concentrating its troops in the Asia-Pacific region, restructuring the US Forces in the name of the ‘Rebalance toward the Asia-Pacific Region.’ What’s more, this administration is scheming to link the allied forces in the region with US Forces. The first to be named is the Japanese Self-Defence Forces, a subservient force accompanying US Forces, and other allied forces of South Korea, Australia, the Philippines to follow it. The front line of such a military encirclement against China is the US military bases in Okinawa, where tilt-rotor Ospreys were forcibly deployed last autumn by riding roughshod over workers’ and students’ protests. US Forces hold more than a hundred military bases in Japan ranging from Okinawa to Hokkaido as if to stick a careful and hostile gazing on China all the time. The whole country of Japan has become a forward base of the military encirclement against China.
Furthermore, the Obama administration is pouring a huge amount of money into development of high-tech armaments despite the huge budget deficit it is burdened with. This administration of the warmonger state is developing so-called ‘killer robots’ that stand in a battle field instead of soldiers, to say nothing of drones and remote-controlled ground robots, which have been already deployed for wars in the Middle East.
On the other hand, the Xi government of China has adopted a strategy of becoming a ‘maritime power’ for breaking through the US military encirclement. It is frantically building up its nuclear military capabilities as seen in the introduction of China’s first aircraft carrier. With the aim of seizing command of the South and East China Seas from the US, and that of the West Pacific Ocean, the Chinese government constantly repeats naval exercises nowadays. And now, its expansion of armaments against the US extends into outer space along with the development of ASAT [anti-satellite interceptor].
It does not end here. The Chinese government has announced that it is China’s ‘core interests’ to possess the Diaoyu Islands, as well as the Spratly and Paracel Islands. By repeating violent, high-handed behaviour towards fishing boats of Vietnam and the Philippines, it causes friction with these countries. The Chinese bureaucracy also schemes to seize and monopolize the marine resources of East Asia.
As to Russia, the number of nuclear warheads it possesses still counts 8,500. The counter-strengthening of armament against the US has been spurred on. Putin, who desires to rehabilitate ‘Russia as a world power’, has advanced its navy into the North Pacific Ocean.
In East Asia, the US (plus Japan) and China/Russia confront with each other politically and militarily. Tangled with a scramble for natural resources, this rivalry, now, could be the cause of a new war.
Amid the intensifying rivalry, the Abe government of the Japanese imperialist state is rapidly reinforcing the Japanese SDF as a subservient force to the US one. It has been accepting every request from the Obama administration, such as bearing the huge expenses for constructing US bases in Japan and Guam. However, at the same time, Japanese nationalist Abe, burning with full of ambition, sees that this is a favourable opportunity to promote Japan to a military power of the first-rank, or to a ‘strong state’. This is the reason why the Abe government is trying to bulldoze a new Constitution drafted by his Liberal Democratic Party. It schemes to eliminate the present Constitution stating ‘renunciation of war’ and adopt new one that specifies the possession of ‘Defence Military’ and the ‘restriction’ of human rights. In April, he openly uttered, as Prime Minister, that ‘definition of what constitutes invasion has yet to be established’. With the aim of establishing such a Constitution, he propagandizes for justifying the invasion of Asian countries as a ‘liberation war of Asia’
Triggered by the inexcusable words and deeds that Abe and his followers have repeated, burning indignations of toiling masses have broken out everywhere, particularly in China and South Korea. The government is also producing frictions with power holders of these countries. Here, it is making tensions intensified even more in East Asia.
We strongly oppose the strengthening of the new US-Japan military alliance as a defensive and offensive alliance against China! Stop the construction of a new US base in Henoko, Okinawa! No to the Henoko base construction for building the frontline base of the military encirclement against China! Remove the Ospreys! Fight against the counter-nuclear-buildup promoted by the rulers of China and Russia!
(2)
In the Middle East, isolated Israel of Netanyahu is scared of being surrounded by the flame of anti-US/anti-Zionist resentment, levying wars frantically against the neighbouring countries. The rulers of Israel are screaming for a need to launch a military attack on Iran, which proceeds with nuclear development. Fight against the brutalities of Israel armed with eighty nuclear warheads under the protection of the US! Denounce this warmonger repeating air raids against Palestine and Syria!
In Syria, where the Assad regime is escalating armed oppression against anti-government groups, more than a hundred thousand people have been killed. The civil war is tangled with a sectarian strife between the Shiah and the Sunni, becoming intensified more than ever. Russia supports the Assad regime whilst the imperialist states of the US, Britain and France express their supports to anti-Assad groups: furnishing arms aids, these rulers are egoistically trying to accomplish each of their state interests. They are the ones who are leaving Syrian toiling masses in hell!
Denounce the Assad regime and denounce the massacre of Syrian masses! Denounce the Israeli government launching air raids on Syria! Toiling masses of Syria! Now is the time to unite beyond sectarian differences to topple down the Assad regime!
Inexcusably, the Obama-led US imperialist state is repeating drone attacks on people in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It has dragged the Middle East and Central Asia into a nightmare; Afghanistan and Iraq were turned into a US ‘testing ground’ for new high-tech weaponry like white-phosphorus bombs and daisy cutters. In areas where US Forces attacked with depleted uranium munitions, many of the children are suffering from malformation. US imperialism, which committed the historical crime of dropping atomic bombs onto Hiroshima and Nagasaki, this time, has thrown the toiling masses of the Middle East and Central Asia into a radiation disaster.
Workers and people all over the world! Promote the antiwar struggles in solidarity with fighting people in the Middle East, Central Asia and North Africa!
(3)
Today, everywhere in the world, more workers than ever are deprived of their jobs and are suffering poverty. Governments and capitalists are imposing heavier burdens upon us workers.
In Japan, Prime Minister Abe has started to implement so-called ‘Japan’s economic recovery’ measures, including an extreme monetary relaxation policy (i.e. expansion in the monetary base), public investments funded with the issue of a huge amount of government bonds, and reactionary revisions of labour laws. The enforcement of such measures, or so-called Abenomics, is forcing severer poverty and harsh low-wage labour on the toiling masses. The manipulated yen’s depreciation and high stock prices has contributed to moneymaking for a handful of monopoly capitalists and hedge funds, whereas for the toiling masses it has caused great hardships of life due to price hikes. For covering the financial deficit which is now amounting to astronomical figures, the Japanese government is preparing a drastic raise of the consumption tax. The corporation tax, on the other hand, is to be reduced pretty soon. While spreading the demagogic propaganda that the overprotection of jobless people and workers is the cause of the slump of the Japanese economy, the Abe government is reducing social security expenses, and besides, carrying out ‘deregulation in the field of labour’. It is creating a ‘paradise for capitalists’, where they can freely exploit workers with low wages and dismiss them at any time. But this is a hell for workers and nothing else.
We, workers of Japan, will definitely smash such offensives of the government and the ruling class!
In the lingering economic crisis, imperialist governments are doing everything to bail out monopoly capitalists of their own countries, while making workers and the toiling masses pay the price for the crisis. In Europe, the austerity policies that the EU leadership has imposed on severely indebted countries have thrown an unprecedented number of people into unemployment. In the United States, workers’ wages have been cut drastically in the last five years. Today, the wages of manufacturing workers are even said to be as low as those in China. An enormous amount of dollars printed according to the Obama administration’s quantitative easing policy has been poured into newly emerging and developing countries for speculative businesses, only to boost inflation there.
‘Economic recovery by means of monetary easing’ is impossible. Contemporary capitalism has already lost vitality, showing signs of the approaching end. As the only measure left for capitalism, imperialist governments and monopoly capitalists, as well as governments and native capitalists of developing countries who are colluding with imperialists, are imposing more poverty and low-wage labour on the toiling masses. The bureaucratic government of China, now faced with a slowdown in the economy, is no exception.
This is not all. In a bid to escape from the economic crisis, imperialist governments are fully assisting their capitalists to carry out overseas expansion. Imperialists are bent on making neo-colonialist invasion of Asian, African and Latin American countries in pursuit of commodity markets, resources and cheaper labour-power.
The neo-Stalinist bureaucratic government of China, now the world’s second greatest economic power, is promoting the overseas expansion of Chinese enterprises while continuing to introduce foreign capital. It is also scheming to create a China-led economic bloc. Thus, in the Asia-Pacific region, a bitter rivalry is growing between China and the US: China is aiming for an economic bloc that excludes the US (e.g. the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership), while the US is forming a US-led free trade zone (i.e. the Trans-Pacific Partnership). Such an economic rivalry is closely entangled with a political and military confrontation between the two states to heighten military tensions in various regions of the world.
Comrades of the world!
Everywhere in the world, angry workers are rising up in protest — in Brazil, Turkey, Greece… Our comrades are fighting at this very moment. Now is the time to unite and strengthen our counterattack. Fight against the monopoly capitalist class and its governments! No to the imposition of poverty on the toiling masses! No to neo-colonialist invasion!
(4)
The world where we live today is covered with dark clouds of warfare. Imperialist America, the world’s strongest nuclear power, has numerous military bases all over the Pacific region. Against it, China is hell-bent on expansion of armaments on the basis of the ‘logic of power politics’ in the same manner as imperialist rulers though it claims to be ‘socialist’. The competition for strengthening nuclear capabilities between the two states is thus intensifying more and more.
Monopoly capitalists are making inroads into foreign countries to obtain cheaper labour-power. Resentment is simmering all over the world against the ones who are greedily exploiting workers and monopolizing natural resources.
The contemporary world is now rotten to such an extent. We must fundamentally overturn it.
We will never let the Abe government justify the aggressive war once conducted by the Tennoist state of Japan against China and other Asian countries as a ‘sacred war to liberate Asia’. The Japanese military massacred twenty million Asian people. It ravaged the Chinese Continent and placed Korea and other Asian countries under its colonial rule. This blood-stained war of aggression must go down in history.
We firmly fight against the Abe government which glorifies the aggression in the past war. As the Japanese proletariat, we express our self-criticism to all the toiling people of China and other Asian countries for not having been able to stop the Tennoist state from committing the aggressive war.
Workers and toiling people of China! We call on you to fight together with us in denouncing US imperialism for strengthening its military encirclement against China, and condemning the Abe-led Japanese government for justifying Japan’s historical war crimes. We call on you, at the same time, to stand up against your own government by rejecting anti-Japanese nationalism propagandized for the ‘possession of the Diaoyu Islands’. Promote antiwar struggles against warmongering attempts of the Chinese government and its nuclear military buildup! The Chinese government is fanning Sinocentric nationalism to avert the eyes of workers who have risen up in protest against the corrupt bureaucrats of the central and local governments and against the bosses of state enterprises or private and foreign-owned enterprises that are exploiting workers at extremely low wages. It is an anti-proletarian chauvinistic ideology for diverting the resentment of the toiling masses to ‘foreign enemies’.
Recollect! During the days of the anti-Japanese resistance, people of China distinguished between Japanese toiling masses who were mobilized in the war and the Japanese government or the military. The Japanese toiling masses should not be the target of your denunciation.
The party-state bureaucracy of China have plunged workers and peasants into abject misery. Denounce them who have transformed China’s economic structure into state capitalism while maintaining the signboard of a ‘socialist state’!
Let us smash the nationalist, chauvinist ideological offensives launched by both governments! Create solidarity between Chinese and Japanese workers and people across the border!
In Japan, the leadership of Rengo, the biggest national centre of trade unions in Japan, is planning to decide, in the coming convention, to effectively accept the revision of the Constitution. Based on the idea that the labour and management share the same destiny, those labour aristocrats of Rengo have been suppressing workers’ struggles.
The same goes for the Japanese Communist Party. Today when the Abe government is insisting on Japan’s ‘possession’ of the Senkaku Islands and spreading Japanese nationalism in the name of ‘national interests’, this party is not against it, rather lending a helping hand to it. The JCP says, ‘The Japanese government should state more clearly to the Chinese government that the Senkaku Islands are a territory that is an inherent part of Japan’. The JCP leadership has joined in the nationalist propaganda conducted by the imperialist government, thus serving to divide the toiling people of Japan and China from each other. This is an inevitable result of them having obliterated the class nature of the state and pursued ‘reforms within the framework of capitalism’.
They can never overturn the rotten world of today. We shall resolutely overcome the official leaderships and fight to strengthen the class solidarity of the working people.
The contemporary capitalism is in its death throes. Workers and people are rising up all over the world in opposition to governments’ policies to prepare wars and to make the toiling masses pay for the economic crisis. Impermissibly, nationalist ideologies are being spread not only by the ruling classes and their governments but also by the official leaderships of the labour movement. In opposition to such an ideological offensive, workers and people must unite both in their own countries and across national borders.
Imperialist rulers say the Soviet Union has collapsed and so has Marxism. This is a sheer demagogy! Official leaderships, including most communist parties in the world, have bowed to this demagogy. What has collapsed is not Marxism but Stalinism, which is pseudo-Marxism. It is Stalinism that has led the Soviet Union to its disintegration and has driven contemporary China into the utmost degeneration. Only the internationally united fight of the working class, overcoming the degenerate official leaderships, can open the way for eradicating wars, poverty, radioactive contamination, environmental destruction and the deepening material and mental alienation of the toiling masses. Now is the time to raise our voices all over the world: ‘WORKERS OF ALL COUNTRIES, UNITE!’
Executive Committee for the 51st International Antiwar Assembly
