Japan Diet panel to vote on military bills amid protests

Opposition lawmakers and thousands of demonstrators were staging last-ditch protests in a political showdown on Wednesday as Japan’s ruling party started a final push to pass security legislation to expand the role of the country’s military.

The bills would allow Japan’s military to defend its allies even when Japan isn’t under attack, work more closely with the US and other allies, and do more in international peacekeeping. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe says Japan needs the bills to bolster its defense amid China’s growing assertiveness and to share the global peacekeeping effort. Opponents say the legislation violates Japan’s war-renouncing constitution, while putting Japan at risk of being embroiled in US-led wars. 

Opposition lawmakers talked of preventing colleagues from entering the chamber of the committee on the security legislation in the parliament’s upper house, where the bills were to be voted on later Wednesday, and proposing a non-confidence vote against Abe’s Cabinet at a subsequent house vote, expected Thursday. They were backed up by thousands of protesters gathering outside the parliament building. 

While the bills were being debated in the parliament, new faces were joining the ranks of protesters typically made up of labor union members and graying <g data-gr-id="14">lef</g>-wing activists.