WPLL newsletter “Umitsubame” No.1506
September 14, 2025 English version
💁 This is the international edition of “Umitsubame” (The Petrel) — the political newsletter of the Workers Party for the Liberation of Labor (Japan). We aim to present a workers’ perspective on global affairs and call for international class solidarity.
✊ Overthrow the Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito administration, which promotes debt-dependent fiscal expansion and increased military spending!
✊ Oppose all forms of discrimination, especially gender discrimination, ethnic discrimination, and wage discrimination!
✊ Let's advance our struggle under the banner of “abolishing exploitation” and “liberating labor”!
💠 Contents
- We Condemn the LDP’s Blame-Shifting — A Leader Swap Is Only Life Support
- Calling Japan’s Invasion of China a “War of Self-Defense” — Where Sanseito’s Distortion of History Leads
- China Flaunts Military Power to Face the United States — Xi’s Message at the 80th-Anniversary Parade
- A Military Budget on an Imperialist Trajectory — Fiscal Strain Will Make Workers Bear the Pain
We Condemn the LDP’s Blame-Shifting — A Leader Swap Is Only Life Support (Summary)
The July House of Councillors defeat reflected public anger over prolonged high prices and low wages, widening inequality, and entrenched money-in-politics corruption.
The crushing defeat in the July House of Councillors election was driven by public anger over prolonged high prices and low wages, widening inequality, and entrenched money-in-politics corruption. The backlash targeted not only the Ishiba administration but the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) as a whole. Even so, under pressure from remnants of the Abe faction as well as mid-career and younger lawmakers, Ishiba used the LDP’s joint meeting of party members from both chambers on September 2 to offer an apology while still signaling a desire to stay on—only to announce his resignation on September 7. This amounts to a mere life-extension tactic: swapping the party leader to postpone accountability.
The party’s official postmortem cited failed price-relief measures and a collapse of public trust, yet it offered no concrete steps on regulating corporate and organizational donations or rebuilding livelihoods, settling instead for superficial proposals such as more study groups and stepped-up online outreach. Neither the Abe-aligned nor younger cohorts have produced real alternatives; their maneuvering has devolved into a power scramble. So long as the party serves the interests of capital, changing the president will not open a path forward. This editorial calls for organizing and advancing a class-based struggle by workers to bring down the LDP and overcome the rule of capital.
We Condemn the LDP’s Blame-Shifting — A Leader Swap Is Only Life Support (Full text)
← Back to Summary ｜ ▲ Contents
On the 7th, Ishiba announced his resignation as LDP president at a press conference, two years before his term was up. After the party’s crushing defeat in the July House of Councillors election, calls for him to step down mounted from Abe-aligned lawmakers and mid-career and younger groups. Ishiba resisted but ultimately yielded. Yet the electorate’s anger was directed not only at the Ishiba cabinet but at the LDP as a whole. Responsibility therefore lies with the entire party; merely swapping leaders is a petty attempt to keep the government alive.
◆ Ishiba’s Clinging to Power, Then Exit
The historic defeat reflected public distrust and anger over surging prices that squeeze livelihoods, persistently low wages, widening inequality between the wealthy and working people, and money-in-politics corruption symbolized by the LDP’s “slush funds.” Voters said “no” to the Ishiba administration; he should have resigned at once.
Even on the key issue of “politics and money,” Ishiba opposed abolishing corporate and organizational donations on the grounds of “political freedom,” pushing instead for cosmetic steps—digitizing political funding reports for “transparency,” or third-party checks on legality—while keeping such donations in place. Regarding the Abe faction’s kickback scandal, he rejected perjury-penalized testimony (a formal Diet summons) and hid behind non-binding “explanations” in the Diet.
At the LDP joint meeting of Diet members from both houses on September 2, Ishiba offered an apology—“I betrayed expectations that I would change things”—and said he was not intent on clinging to the post and would decide “at the proper time.” In the same breath, he stressed that he must “take responsibility” for urgent issues like U.S.–Japan tariff talks and price measures, signaling a wish to stay on. Behind the scenes he floated running in a snap leadership race and even hinted at using the prime minister’s authority to dissolve the lower house, pressuring anti-Ishiba lawmakers. He also ordered new economic measures. A slight uptick in cabinet approval and polls showing fewer people insisting he resign may have emboldened him, but that reflected only a view that Ishiba was “less bad” than a hard-right Abe-aligned successor—not genuine support for his continuation.
◆ The LDP’s Irresponsible Postmortem
The party’s official postmortem (sōkatsu), presented at the joint meeting, exposes its irresponsibility. It says cash handouts failed to “resonate” as a response to price hikes and that “politics-and-money” scandals hurt trust—then leaps to vague pledges: organizing mixed generational study groups to craft a “national vision,” and ramping up internet outreach to track public sentiment. It mouths “delivering peace of mind to people’s lives” without concrete plans. Calling this a “party-relaunch” is an insult to voters.
◆ Organize to Defeat LDP Rule and Capital’s Domination
Following the postmortem, four top party officers, including Secretary-General Moriyama and Policy Research Council Chair Onodera, announced their resignations. Ministers and vice-ministers began peeling off; as calls for Ishiba’s removal approached a majority, he was forced to quit. But the success of “oust Ishiba” does not vindicate that camp. Abe-aligned forces spearheading it drove debt-swelling giveaways under Abenomics while entangling themselves in slush funds and ties to the former Unification Church. Mid-career and younger lawmakers likewise offered no real reform plan—only noisy demands that “Ishiba must go.”
They peddle the illusion that changing presidents will renew the LDP and open a brighter future. So long as the LDP remains a party that serves capital and rests on exploitation of labor, workers cannot expect a better tomorrow regardless of who leads it. The race for the LDP presidency is a power struggle that ignores the electorate. We must build and advance class-based struggle to break LDP politics and overcome the rule of capital.
Calling Japan’s Invasion of China a “War of Self-Defense” — Where Sanseito’s Distortion of History Leads (Summary)
This piece critiques Sanseito’s portrayal of the Sino-Japanese War as “self-defense” and examines the political implications of that stance today.
This article challenges Sanseito’s claim that the Sino-Japanese War was a “war of self-defense” and explores the political implications of such a view. In a street speech in Naha on June 23, party leader Kamiya denied Japan’s invasion of mainland China and labeled Chinese resistance as “terrorist operations.” The article argues that this framing closely echoes the prewar military’s self-justifications.
As background, it notes how the post–World War I recession, the Shōwa Depression, and the consolidation of monopoly capital deepened Japan’s domestic economic impasse and intensified ambitions to expand into the Chinese market and secure resource concessions. In response, Chinese resistance grew—including counterattacks by the Chinese Communist Party and the nationwide “December 9th Movement” of students.
Despite this record, rhetoric that brands such resistance as “terrorism” while recasting Japan’s actions as “self-defense” mirrors slogans like the wartime “holy war” and the 1938 “New Order in East Asia,” carrying the danger of sliding from historical revisionism toward fascistic mobilization. The article concludes by stressing the need for evidence-based scrutiny and critical thinking against discourse that trivializes or reverses historical facts, and calls on readers to confront where, in today’s political climate, arguments that obscure past aggression would lead society.
Calling Japan’s Invasion of China a “War of Self-Defense” — Where Sanseito’s Distortion of History Leads (Full text)
← Back to Summary ｜ ▲ Contents
Sanseito advances a self-serving and distorted historical view. In its campaign speeches, the party denied the imperialist atrocities of Japan’s advance into China and defended the old Japanese military by claiming it fought a “war of self-defense.”
At a street speech in Naha on June 23, party leader Kamiya repeated rhetoric that mirrors the prewar military’s excuses: “Japan wasn’t seeking land on the continent. The story that our army invaded China is false. It was Chinese terrorist operations that forced us to keep advancing in self-defense.” What Kamiya calls “terrorist operations” were in fact Chinese resistance to Japan’s invasion. Such resistance grew as Japan pressed for a second “Manchukuo” following the puppet state established in the early 1930s.
Looking back, Japan’s full-scale incursion into China began under the pressure of economic crises: the post–World War I recession, the 1927 Shōwa Depression, and the 1929 world crash, which accelerated the elimination of small firms and the rise of monopolistic capital. That capital pushed for expansion into China, investing in textiles and resource development—the so-called zaika-bō spinning companies—amounting to some ¥183 million by 1930, the equivalent of billions today. Japan’s desire for exclusive control of Manchuria’s resources deepened after weakening Russia’s hold there in the Russo-Japanese War.
The Kwantung Army, bent on seizing Manchuria, staged the Mukden (Liutiaohu) Incident in September 1931 by blowing up part of the South Manchurian Railway, then quickly occupied the entire region by 1932. Kamiya may insist that “Japan sought no land,” but this cannot erase the historical record.
To deflect international criticism, the army set up Manchukuo under the last Qing emperor, Puyi, in name an independent state but in reality a Japanese puppet. Despite voices at home opposing further expansion, the central army and the Kwantung Army pressed ahead with the 1935–36 “North China Separation” operations, invading Chahar and Hebei provinces with the aim of detaching five northern provinces to form a second puppet regime.
These repeated aggressions sparked fierce resistance: counterattacks by Communist forces and the December 9th student movement in Beijing, which spread rapidly nationwide. As Japanese invasion and colonial rule intensified, protests swept across China. Yet Kamiya dismisses this natural struggle for self-determination as “terrorism” and spins Japan’s actions as “self-defense.”
Such rhetoric is a mirror image of the prewar military’s glorification of aggression as a “holy war.” It is not merely historical revisionism but a step toward the fascist mobilization of the 1930s and 1940s, when slogans like the “New Order in East Asia” were used to justify imperialist war. The article warns that Sanseito’s posture echoes that dangerous path.
China Flaunts Military Power to Face the United States — Xi’s Message at the 80th-Anniversary Parade (Summary)
Starting from the September 3 parade, this article reads the Xi administration’s bid to showcase military strength and international clout, and situates it within shifting alignments around the U.S.–China rivalry.
Beginning with the September 3 military parade marking the 80th anniversary of victory in the War of Resistance Against Japan, the article examines how the Xi administration sought to display both military might and international influence vis-à-vis the United States. The presence of President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un signaled China’s role as a convening node in an emerging counter-U.S. alignment. Xi’s address stressed the goal of building a “world-class military” and reaffirmed a commitment to “territorial integrity,” explicitly including Taiwan.
Against the backdrop of tariff-driven turbulence in the international order since the Trump years, the piece then traces how Beijing has tightened ties with the Global South through the Forum on China–Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), weaving a diplomatic counterweight to U.S. pressure. Developments in India, Brazil, and other states illustrate how the U.S.–China contest is reshaping alliances and patterns of cooperation.
The article also highlights China’s economic and technological support that helps sustain Russia’s war effort, alongside Moscow’s fiscal strain—an interdependence with real geopolitical effects. Domestically, indicators such as prices, real-estate and manufacturing investment, PMI readings, and youth unemployment point to persistent stagnation. In this setting, state-orchestrated events and nationalist mobilization are becoming central tools of governance. Overall, the piece frames Xi’s rule through three lenses—military display, diplomatic realignment, and economic slowdown—to consider likely repercussions for East Asia and the global economy.
China Flaunts Military Power to Face the United States — Xi’s Message at the 80th-Anniversary Parade (Full text)
← Back to Summary ｜ ▲ Contents
On September 3 in Beijing, China held a massive military parade to mark the 80th anniversary of victory in the War of Resistance Against Japan. The presence of Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un underscored China’s role as a hub in a new counter-U.S. alignment. In his speech, Xi Jinping pledged to build a “world-class military” and stressed “territorial integrity,” explicitly including Taiwan.
The parade presented weapons claimed to be in active service: the Dongfeng DF-61 intercontinental ballistic missile, the Julang JL-3 submarine-launched ballistic missile, an array of drones and robotic platforms, directed-energy weapons, and other AI-driven, networked capabilities. Outwardly, the display was a message of deterrence aimed at the United States; inwardly, it was propaganda to mobilize pride at home.
China’s defense spending is officially the second largest in the world. Reported at roughly one-third of U.S. levels in 2024, many analysts argue the true figure is higher. By Beijing’s own data, the budget has grown about fourteen-fold since 2000 and has remained in second place since 2010.
Beyond the parade, the article situates China in broader geopolitics: bolstering Russia’s war effort economically and technologically even as Moscow’s finances falter; expanding ties with the Global South through the Forum on China–Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO); and weaving a diplomatic counterweight to U.S. pressure. Developments in India, Brazil, and other states show how the U.S.–China confrontation is reshaping alliances.
Domestically, the Chinese economy shows persistent stagnation: weak price indicators, depressed property and manufacturing investment, PMI levels below 50, and high youth unemployment. In this environment, orchestrated spectacles and nationalist rhetoric have become core instruments of governance. Xi’s rule thus rests on two pillars—hardline foreign policy and tightened domestic control—viewed here through the lenses of military display, diplomatic realignment, and economic slowdown.
A Military Budget on an Imperialist Trajectory — Fiscal Strain Will Make Workers Bear the Pain (Summary)
Starting from the record ¥122 trillion FY2026 budget request and ¥8.8 trillion for defense, this article assesses the “fundamental reinforcement” of Japan’s defense posture and who will ultimately shoulder the costs.
Using the record-high FY2026 budget request of ¥122 trillion and the ¥8.8 trillion allocation for defense as a point of departure, the article examines the content and consequences of the accelerated “fundamental reinforcement of defense capabilities” initiated under the three security documents. Beyond annual increases since FY2022, out-year obligations have already ballooned to over ¥16 trillion, and defense outlays are set to climb further.
On the other side of the ledger, workers continue to face persistent inflation and falling real wages. Debt-financed rearmament shifts the burden onto households and future generations as higher borrowing needs ripple through the economy.
The request’s core emphasizes the advancement of strike, surveillance, and interception capabilities—stand-off defense, unmanned asset defense, and a comprehensive missile-defense architecture.
The article argues that, under the banner of “deterrence,” such expansion risks heightening military and political tensions with neighboring countries. At home, swelling debt service and the repeated deferral of the primary budget (PB) surplus target point to an eventual mix of inflation, tax hikes, and cuts to social security—costs that will be shifted onto workers. In conclusion, it calls on workers not to pin their hopes on a new administration, but to pursue fundamental change in the capitalist mode of production and to advance class struggle in solidarity with workers worldwide.
A Military Budget on an Imperialist Trajectory — Fiscal Strain Will Make Workers Bear the Pain (Full text)
← Back to Summary ｜ ▲ Contents
The article takes as its starting point the FY2026 budget request, which at ¥122 trillion is the largest ever, with defense outlays expanded to ¥8.8 trillion. It examines the accelerated “fundamental reinforcement of defense capabilities” launched under the three security documents. Beyond annual increases since FY2022, out-year obligations have swollen past ¥16 trillion, with further rises expected.
Meanwhile, workers’ lives remain squeezed by rising prices and falling real wages. Expansion financed by greater government borrowing passes the burden to households and future generations.
At the core of the request are programs to advance strike, surveillance, and interception capabilities: stand-off defense, unmanned-asset defense, and comprehensive missile defense. These include long-range and hypersonic missiles, unmanned systems coordinated under the “SHIELD” coastal defense concept, a next-generation fighter with the UK and Italy, AI-driven drones, and expanded domains in space and cyber. Plans also call for upgrading the Air Self-Defense Force into an “Aerospace Self-Defense Force,” turning the 15th Brigade in Okinawa into a division, and exploring a Pacific defense concept.
The author argues that under the banner of “deterrence,” such buildup in fact heightens military and political tensions with neighboring countries. At home, ballooning debt service and repeated deferrals of the primary budget (PB) surplus target mean that the costs will fall on workers through inflation, higher taxes, or cuts to social security—or some combination thereof.
The conclusion calls on workers not to pin their hopes on the new administration but to pursue fundamental change in the capitalist mode of production and to advance class struggle in solidarity with workers worldwide.
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Workers Party aiming for liberation of labor
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