Japan’s Takaichi marks one year in office amid warnings that military expansion, constitutional revision and possible nuclear-powered submarines risk heightening tensions

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is marking one year in office as politicians, protesters and nuclear experts criticize her administration’s push to expand military capabilities, revise Japan’s pacifist Constitution and consider introducing nuclear-powered submarines. They warn the policies could heighten regional tensions and undermine the country’s postwar pacifist principles.

Citizens gathered outside the National Diet in Tokyo to oppose the military buildup and constitutional revision, calling for peace to be preserved. Representatives of the Japanese Communist Party and the Social Democratic Party also criticized missile deployments and large-scale joint military exercises with the United States, describing them as signs of a dangerous revival of militarism.

At a Tokyo seminar, nuclear experts and peace advocates argued that introducing nuclear-powered submarines would contradict previous government positions on the peaceful use of atomic energy and weaken international nonproliferation efforts.

Former Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba recently criticized the government on a television program for what he described as a lack of honesty about Japan’s wartime history. He questioned whether a country that does not fully acknowledge past facts can build solid diplomatic relations.

Ishiba also argued that “Sanae-nomics” had failed to bring prosperity and pointed to the possibility that Japan’s global GDP ranking could decline.