{"id":46304,"date":"2026-06-24T06:13:07","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T06:13:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/46304\/"},"modified":"2026-06-24T06:13:07","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T06:13:07","slug":"anti-war-protesters-jeer-japans-takaichi-over-softening-pacifist-stance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/46304\/","title":{"rendered":"Anti-war protesters jeer Japan\u2019s Takaichi over softening pacifist stance"},"content":{"rendered":"

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi<\/a> was heckled at a World War II memorial event by protesters angry about Tokyo\u2019s further shift away from its decades-long pacifist stance, television footage showed.Close US ally Japan<\/a> in April loosened rules on lethal arms exports and Takaichi, long seen as a security hawk who last year riled mainland China with comments about Taiwan, has said she wants to revise the constitution.<\/p>\n

A small but vocal number of demonstrators shouted slogans throughout Takaichi\u2019s speech on Tuesday at an event commemorating the 81st anniversary of the end of the savage 1945 Battle of Okinawa in which some 200,000 Japanese died.<\/p>\n

The jeers included \u201cNo to war!\u201d and \u201cProtect Article 9!\u201d, a reference to a clause in Japan\u2019s constitution that renounces war, the footage showed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhenever I reflect upon the regret of all those who perished in the war and the grief of the bereaved families, my heart is filled with profound sorrow,\u201d Takaichi said in the address.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnder our unwavering pledge never again to repeat the devastation of war, Japan has steadfastly moved forward on this path as a nation that places the highest value on peace,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Why have Takaichi\u2019s Taiwan comments sent China-Japan ties into a tailspin?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi was heckled at a World War II memorial event by protesters angry about…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":46305,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1017,549,12,8,17,162,23,358,488,52,25,1315,2144,32295],"class_list":["post-46304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-japan","tag-article-9","tag-beijing","tag-china","tag-japan","tag-japanese","tag-okinawa","tag-philippines","tag-sanae-takaichi","tag-taiwan","tag-tokyo","tag-us","tag-us-military","tag-world-war-ii","tag-world-war-ii-memorial-event"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46304\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}