In the summer of 2015, tens of thousands of angry Japanese took to the streets of Tokyo.
Changes to security legislation pushed by then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe were considered by some to be so controversial, so against the spirit of 91AV原创 pacifist Constitution, that protests against them were the biggest seen since the 1960s. In parliament, some lawmakers scuffled in a failed attempt to stop the law from being passed.
International media asked, “Is Japan Abandoning Its Pacifism?” The Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Herbert Bix reflected a commonly held view at the time when, writing in 2016, he said that “neoliberals illegally jammed through” the bills and that increased defense spending was “wasting taxpayer money that is needed to meet the more pressing needs of the Japanese people.”
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