On the 1st of August, we, the anti-Stalinist revolutionary Left in Japan, are going to hold international antiwar rallies in Tokyo and 6 other cities throughout the country. Fully resolved to make a success of these rallies, we call on our comrades, colleagues and antiwar organizations all over the world to fight together, strengthen and expand our ardent international solidarity. Today, with the coming of the era of a serious confrontation between the US and China, there is an impending crisis of warfare in the Korean Peninsula and the Middle East. The outbreak of war must be stopped, no matter what. Let us create a torrent of international forces that will advance a revolutionary antiwar struggle. Let us rise by fundamentally overcoming the degeneration of the official opposition movement leaders, including converted Stalinists, social democrats and Trotskyists turning into social democrats!

(1)

Right now, the Korean Peninsula is on the brink of war.

'North Korean forces used a torpedo to sink the corvette Cheonan on March 26th' - this was the conclusion drawn by the South Korean government on May 20th. As a result, it demanded that the Kim Jon Il government 'punish those responsible for the attack'.

The US and Japanese governments promptly gave their full support to South Korea's decision. On the one hand, the rulers of South Korea, the US and Japan each referred to the possibility of a 'diplomatic solution'; but on the other, they have mobilized their land, sea and air forces on a massive scale, placing them on a war footing against North Korea. Affronted by these developments, the North Korean government vehemently protested and threatened that it would 'initiate a full-scale military strike', a 'merciless military strike that could even turn Seoul into a sea of fire.' It has put its whole army on standby for full-scale combat.

Since June 21st, the US imperialist Obama administration has been carrying out trilateral military exercises in the sea near Okinawa, together with the Kan government of Japan and the Rudd government of Australia (Rudd was replaced by Gillard on June 24th). This has involved mobilizing its 19 warships, including the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS George Washington. And together with the Lee Myung-Bak government of South Korea, this administration is planning to conduct anti-submarine manoeuvres in the Yellow Sea from early July, within a stone's throw from Qingdao where China's North Sea Fleet is based.

The US government is thus repeatedly - almost continuously - carrying out joint military exercises off the Korean Peninsula and in the East China Sea by mobilizing Japanese, South Korean and Australian troops under the command of US Forces in Japan and South Korea. At the same time, these military actions against North Korea are designed to put on a show of US military presence to China and Russia, staunch supporters of North Korea. The Obama administration is now intending to form a stronger 'military encircling net' against Hu Jintao's China, which is rushing headlong towards strengthening its own naval forces by openly setting the goal of winning command of the East and South China Seas from US imperialism. Precisely for this purpose, the US is hurrying to forge links between its military alliances with South Korea, Japan and Australia, pivoting on the new US-Japan military alliance.

Meanwhile, the Hu-led government of China and the Putin-Medvedev government of Russia are calling for 'calm and restraint, so as not to further escalate tensions' (over the sinking of the South Korean warship). At the same time, they are taking military measures to counter moves by the US, Japan and South Korea to place their armies on a war footing against North Korea. The Russian government, especially, has officially voiced doubt about the US and South Korean allegation of 'North Korea's torpedo attack', and has dispatched its own experts to investigate the sinking incident. It is going so far as to prepare large-scale naval exercises in the Far Eastern sea area from late June, including mobilization of its Black Sea Fleet. These are being prepared in accordance with its plan of operations 'to cope with the deployment of US forces in the event of an emergency over the Korean Peninsula'.

The South Korean warship sinking incident is being fully exploited by US and South Korean rulers as a pretext for placing their armies on a war footing against North Korea (or a quasi-war footing against China). But it is presumed that this was, in the first place, a major conspiracy engineered by US imperialists to produce the fiction that it was war provocation by North Korea. At present, the Obama administration is desperate to contain Hu-led China, which is steadily building up its position as a hegemonic 'world power' and making rapid progress in strengthening its nuclear capability (i.e. comprehensive military capability with a core in nuclear arms), based on its close ties with Russia. Thus, with the aim of containing this 'rising dragon' - as we surmise - the Obama administration forged a conspiracy to sink the South Korean warship. It intended to create a convenient pretext for rebuilding and strengthening the triangular military alliance between the US, Japan and South Korea.

War is always triggered by conspiracy. The ongoing crisis of warfare in the Korean Peninsula shows that a spark of war has been kindled at last in this tense situation, which must be called a 'serious confrontation between the US and China'.

Coinciding with this war crisis over the Korean Peninsula, another tension that could trigger open hostility is growing in the Middle East. Mobilizing its assault commandos, the Netanyahu-led fanatical Zionist regime of Israel attacked a flotilla of the Free Gaza Movement, murdering at least 10 volunteers (May 31st). This Movement, a human rights organization, was created to save Palestinians in Gaza, with the support of the Erdogan-led Turkish government. The Zionist regime perpetrated this brutality out of hatred for the Erdogan government, which has embarked on measures to strengthen its aid activities for Palestinians in Gaza in firm protest against the continued Israeli blockade on the Gaza Strip since the end of 2008. This is not all. Another strong motive that drove the Zionist regime was undoubtedly its anger and irritation towards the Turkish government's announcement that it would mediate in the transfer of Iran's nuclear substances. In doing so, it was seen to be openly colluding with the Ahmadinejad government, which is now pushing towards the development of an 'Islamic nuclear weapon'.

Nuclear development by Iran, which is forming an 'anti-US, anti-Zionist' joint front in the Middle East, is what the fanatical Zionist regime fears most of all. This regime is watching vigilantly for a chance to carry out air strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities, in the same way as it bombed Syria's minor nuclear facilities (for experimental uranium enrichment) to destroy them in 2007. This regime could be about to trigger Armageddon.

In today's world, with its impending crisis of war, we, workers and students in Japan, are fighting to block another Korean War from breaking out due to the 'serious confrontation between the US and China'. We do so by denouncing the degenerated leadership of the existing opposition movement, including the Koga leadership of Rengo (the Japanese Trade Union Confederation) and the central leadership of the Japanese Communist Party headed by Tetsuzo Fuwa and Kazuo Shii. They have not raised a single objection to the preparations for war against North Korea by US, Japanese and South Korean rulers. We are also fighting in Japan to denounce the US imperialist war of aggression against Afghanistan and to overcome the crisis of another outbreak of war in the Middle East.

Workers and people all over the world!

Rise in a fight together with us. Fight in solidarity with the South Korean people who have risen up against war, and with Muslim people in the Middle East who have risen one after another in an 'anti-US, anti-Zionist' struggle.

(2)

The US imperialist Obama administration contrived the conspiracy to sink the South Korean warship; it used the incident as a lever to press the (then) Hatoyama-led Japanese government into accepting the need for the US, Japan and South Korea to cooperate in coping with the 'threat' from North Korea. The Hatoyama government had originally raised the banner of 'Japan's independence from the US' and sought to relocate the US Marine Air Station at Futenma in Okinawa 'out of the country or, at least, out of Okinawa'. But under this pressure from the US, it was forced into submission. And finally, the Hatoyama Cabinet had no choice but to resign.

The Joint Statement of the US-Japan Security Consultative Committee (the so-called 2-plus-2 agreement), announced on May 28th, was not only the Hatoyama government's pledge to the US government to construct a new base for US Marines off Cape Henoko in Nago City, Okinawa. It also meant that the Democratic Party-led government of Japan has agreed to subordinate the military strategy of Japanese imperialism to the US imperialist strategy for world domination - as seen in Obama's 'National Security Strategy', released on May 27th, the day before the US-Japan Joint Statement was announced.

And in fact, the new DPJ-led government, with Naoto Kan succeeding Hatoyama as Prime Minister, is also promoting full collaboration with US and South Korean rulers in preparation for war against North Korea, while also calling for 'stronger cooperation between the US, Japan and South Korea' on the basis of the Joint Statement, which stresses the need to 'deepen the US-Japan alliance'.

We shall never let this triangular military alliance between the US, Japan and South Korea be rebuilt or strengthened. Neither shall we let imperialist rulers make strides in strengthening the new US-Japan military alliance - the core of the triangular alliance - as an offensive and defensive alliance against China and Russia.

In the recent struggle for the immediate removal of the Futenma base and against the construction of the new base in Henoko, we have always taken the lead in denouncing the criminal guidance (or misguidance) of the official leaders. The labour aristocrats of Rengo, who are of a single mind with the DPJ government, ran about frantically trying to throw cold water on the workers' struggle, so as not to drive the Hatoyama government into a predicament. Above all, the leaders of the JCP, headed by Fuwa and Shii, showed an abominable attitude. They placed their hopes on 'progressive aspects' of the Hatoyama government and tried to distort the anti-base movement into one of begging the government to fulfil its 'election promise' (to relocate the Futenma base 'out of the country or, at least, out of Okinawa'). Worse still, they have totally abandoned their opposition to the US-Japan Security Treaty [Ampo]; instead, they insist that the Ampo Treaty should be 'deployed according to its stated purpose, i.e. for the purpose of Japan's defence' or that 'abnormalities in the US-Japan military alliance should be corrected' and that it should be 'reformed into an equal, impartial alliance'. They played the role of preventing the anti-base struggle from developing into an anti-Ampo struggle.

This is not all. JCP Chairman Kazuo Shii, who visited the United States for the first time in May under the pretext of attending the UN meeting to review the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, is spouting the most aggravatingly flagrant flattery and praise for Obama, by saying that the United States has a 'tradition of democracy', or that the Obama administration 'has a receptive ear'. From base motives, the leaders of this party are selling themselves as 'a party that can talk frankly to the US (unlike the DPJ)'. Their aim is merely to get as many votes as possible in the coming Upper House elections on July 11th. By paying compliments to the Obama administration, which is pushing the Japanese government for the new Marine base construction in Henoko and in actuality is preparing for war against North Korea, this converted Stalinist party in Japan has signed its own death warrant.

Denouncing this fathomless degeneration of the official leaders, we have been striving to transform the anti-base struggle in Japan into a militant struggle to oppose the strengthening of the new US-Japan military alliance, and further to aim for the 'complete removal of bases and abolition of the US-Japan Security Treaty'. Thus, all over Japan, there is a growing upsurge of anti-Ampo struggle. We are advancing our struggle to smash the present offensive, launched with the US-Japan Joint Statement as a bridgehead, to rebuild and strengthen the triangular military alliance between the US, Japan and South Korea.

(3)

Today, the world is witnessing new developments centring on the rapid rise of China as a hegemonic 'power', while its basic structure remains comprised of conflicts between the three poles of (1) the US-Japan alliance, (2) the European Union led by the Franco-German axis, and (3) the group of emerging and developing economies led by China and Russia. In particular, it is increasingly assuming the aspect of 'serious confrontation between the US and China'.

Behind the deceitful collusion between US and Russian rulers in the 'nuclear arms reduction agreement', competition between the US and China-Russia to strengthen their respective nuclear capabilities is intensifying more than ever. One of the characteristics of this newly emerging competition between them lies in the qualitative strengthening of their respective nuclear capabilities. Day by day, this competition is increasing the danger of an outbreak of war. It is also connected with a worldwide scramble for natural resources, an economic war over currencies, trade and financial issues (spurred by the proposal for 'IMF reform' by the BRIC countries led by China and Russia, both ambitious to undermine US dominance over the world based on the dollar system), and an economic war linked to conflicts over environmental issues.

The prime focus of this crisis is on East Asia, where military rivalry between the US and China is becoming increasingly intense.

China has been conducting naval exercises in a defiant manner, its warships breaking through the 'first island line' and cruising near the 'second island line'. On this strengthening and deployment of the Chinese navy, the Obama-led US administration is openly expressing great caution, saying that China's 'anti-access strategies seek to deny ... the ability to project [US] power into a region, thereby allowing aggression or other destabilizing actions to be conducted' (the Quadrennial Defense Review). For this reason, it has revised its previous plan of 'transformation' (whereby US forces in the Far East would be reorganized by making Guam the hub of their operations) and is seeking to strengthen its bases in Okinawa, the keystone on the 'first island line', as well as all US military bases in Japan, as forward bases against China. Moreover, in its Nuclear Posture Review, this administration stresses the need 'to forward-deploy non-strategic nuclear weapons in support of its Alliance commitments' and publicly announces that the F-35 next-generation fighter will be armed with tactical nuclear weapons. This is what Barack Obama is doing behind the mask of an 'advocate of nuclear disarmament'.

In opposition to the scheme of the American imperialists, Hu Jintao's China has disclosed its resolve to block hostile forces (which means the US Navy) from taking military action that threatens the 'national interests' of China, even in international waters ('anti-access' strategy). It has also made it public that it will prohibit enemy countries from engaging in free activities within China's 'defence lines' ('area denial' strategy). According to these strategies, China's rulers have defined East Asian seas as 'access denial zones'. By making more elaborate preparations to prevent US and Japanese troops from entering these sea areas, they are seeking to take over the command of these seas from US imperialism. This military strategy of Hu Jintao's China is based on its ambition to secure its sea lanes to Africa (from the East China Sea, via the South China Sea, the Indian Ocean and the Middle East) for the transport of oil and other mineral resources. It also intends to monopolize continental shelf resources in the East and South China Seas.

According to these 'military strategies for active defence', Hu's China is bent on building two domestic aircraft carriers and developing the latest model of attack submarines in the name of 'maritime capabilities with both nuclear and non-nuclear means of operation'. Furthermore, under the banner of 'improving the ability to guarantee safety in seas, outer space and cyber space', China's rulers are hell-bent on developing China's own MD [missile defence] system, promoting military build-up in outer space and strengthening their nuclear arms (in collaboration with Russian rulers).

Certainly, the Obama administration and its Russian counterpart, the Medvedev government, signed the new nuclear arms reduction treaty in place of the expired START I (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) on April 8th. However, this is merely an agreement resulting from a community of interest to the effect that, for nuclear arms reduction and control, the US and Russia will take the lead as the two 'major nuclear powers'. On the one hand, Obama has a driving ambition to recover the prestige of the US as the leading state in 'nuclear arms reduction' and 'global peace and security'. He intends to roll back Hu's China, which has come to hold hegemony in international politics. On the other hand, Putin and Medvedev, who are collaborating with Chinese leaders in forming an international encircling net against US imperialism, are nevertheless annoyed at heart because Russia alone, among all the BRICs, is suffering from economic stagnation, shattering their dream of reinstating Russia as 'a world power'. Their conclusion of the treaty eloquently shows that both sides have colluded with each other to recover their respective national prestige by taking advantage of their status as 'major nuclear powers'. As such, this is another phenomenon produced by the seismic change in the international situation, i.e. the 'serious confrontation between the US and China'.

The signing of the treaty on the reduction of strategic nuclear weapons by both US and Russian rulers is based on the reality that they are both suffering from growing financial deficits amid unprecedented economic difficulties. They are merely seeking for 'nuclear arms reduction' in a way that is favourable to their respective state interests. The Obama administration is anxious to safeguard its overwhelming supremacy in nuclear military power. For this purpose, it is intent, in actuality, on maintaining and upgrading tactical nuclear weapons, which are exempted from reduction, and on deploying missile defences worldwide (including those in South Korea and Romania) to be systematically deployed in connection with said tactical nuclear weapons. It is steadily implementing these measures, while using the new treaty to contain its counterpart so as not to promote another military build-up. In rivalry with the US imperialists, Russian rulers have incorporated stipulations favourable to them in the new treaty - namely, that this treaty 'binds the obligation to reduce strategic offensive weapons to the development of missile defences' and that each side has the 'right to withdraw from the treaty if ... an increase in US strategic missile defence significantly harms the effectiveness of Russia's strategic nuclear forces'. Meanwhile, they are frantically developing a new type of missile that can slip through the interceptors flying from US MD systems. And the rulers of China, now rubbing their hands at the US and Russia's 'arms reduction', are seeking, for their own part, to catch up with the US nuclear military capability. They are busy constructing China's own missile shields (inseparable from the development of new technology to blast US military satellites) and building up China's naval forces in collaboration with Russian rulers.

In this connection, at the 'Nuclear Security Summit' held in mid-April, Obama tried to lead the meeting by stressing his achievements in 'arms reduction' talks with Russia. He sought to involve the Chinese government, which rejects 'nuclear arms reduction', in forming an 'international framework for nuclear arms reduction and control (i.e. non-proliferation)'. He also attempted to form an international containment whereby to press the Ahmadinejad government of Iran (which had announced a plan to start enriching uranium to a higher level) to give up its program for nuclear development.

(These attempts by Obama were intended to break through the latest international context, in which China has become the 'sole winner' in the arena of international politics (as shown dramatically at COP15, the international conference on climate change at the end of the last year). This situation has been brought about against the following background: firstly, China successfully formed a worldwide encircling net against US imperialism during the years of 'Bush's wars'; secondly, China is enjoying high economic growth despite the simultaneous global recession. We can well presume that Obama intended to change this state of affairs and produce a new international framework - a US-China condominium or a G-2 system, so to speak. Hu Jintao, however, has rejected such an invitation, saying that China is 'among the developing nations'. This is because his government is ambitious to unseat US imperialism from the position of a 'sole superpower' and promote China as a hegemonic 'power for the 21st century'.)

At the United Nations meeting held in May to review the Non-Proliferation Treaty, Obama sought a resolution to prevent Iran's nuclear development. However, the Brazilian and Turkish governments, led by Lula and Erdogan, respectively, presented counterarguments to this. As a result, the issue of Iran's nuclear development was deleted from the final document despite obstinate resistance and pressure from the US government. Instead, it stipulated the convening of a 'conference in 2012, to be attended by all States of the Middle East, on the establishment of a Middle East zone free of nuclear weapons and all other weapons of mass destruction', as proposed by the Egyptian government. The Erdogan government, in particular, raised a proposal that Turkey itself should mediate in shipments of nuclear materials to contribute to the 'peaceful use of nuclear energy' by the Iranian government. This proposal gained the support of many representatives of economically emerging and developing countries, and finally foiled the US imperialists' attempt.

These developments signify that behind-the-scenes manoeuvres 'against US imperialism' by Hu's China and Putin-Medvedev's Russia have started to take effect.

Among Islamic countries in the Middle East, there is a growing trend to initiate counteroffensives both against the state of Israel, which already possesses nuclear weapons, and against the imperialist state of America, which is sticking to its double-standard policy - i.e. patronizing nuclear-armed Israel on the one hand, while trying to hamper Iran's nuclear development on the other.

The Turkish Erdogan government is determined to take the lead in this tide 'against US imperialism and against Zionism', even if it means collaborating with the Iranian Ahmadinejad government, which is bent on possessing an 'Islamic nuclear weapon'. In the past, Turkey used to be a pro-American state and even had a military cooperation agreement with Israel. But after Israel's invasion of Gaza (December 2008), the G・-Erdogan government (the first Islamic government in Turkey's history, coming to power in 2002) made its 'anti-Zionist' position clear. This is the very reason why the fanatical Zionist Israeli regime, having lost its only 'friendly nation' in the Middle East, assaulted the Gaza aid flotilla with open hatred for the Turkish government and murdered Turkish volunteers.

With burning anger, we condemn the deadly attack on the Gaza aid flotilla by the bloodthirsty Netanyahu regime of Israel! Denounce the Obama government that permits the Israeli blockade of Gaza!

We are sounding the alarm. There is a growing danger that the cornered Israeli rulers will launch a military attack against Iran. We call on workers and people all over the world to rise in solidarity with Muslim people fighting against the US, against Zionism. Fight to stop the frantic Zionist Israeli regime from committing further brutality! Fight to end 'Obama's war' that is still making Afghan people wallow in pools of blood, though repeatedly routed.

In the midst of the serious confrontation between the US and China, war is imminent in both East and West Asia. The root cause of this crisis, of course, lies in the competition between US imperialism and China-Russia to strengthen their respective nuclear capabilities on a new level. We must resolutely create a revolutionary antiwar struggle, based on proletarian internationalism, against this race to strengthen nuclear capabilities between the US and China-Russia.

Workers and toiling masses in Japan, the only country in the world that has ever experienced a nuclear holocaust, know very well that it is nothing but a fantasy to place hopes on the 'abolition of nuclear weapons' through 'nuclear disarmament' talks between state power holders. This fantasy arises from the fallacy of regarding nuclear weapons in themselves as the cause of threats to the 'human community' or 'peace'. It results from seeing them in isolation from the confrontations between the states, the US and China-Russia, all of which produce nuclear weapons, arm themselves with them, and confront each other with them (this confrontation is, in itself, the root cause of the war crisis). For this very reason, the banner of our struggle must not be to 'abolish nuclear weapons' but to 'oppose the competition to strengthen nuclear capabilities'. There is no force in the world that can create 'truly permanent peace', other than that of advancing the struggle of the working class and people who are united across borders to break the competition between the US and China-Russia to strengthen their nuclear capabilities.

Workers and people all over the world!

Expose every deception in our rulers' claims of 'nuclear disarmament' or 'arms control'! Now is the time to rise up in struggle, united under a single banner: 'Oppose the newly emerging competition between the US and China-Russia to strengthen their nuclear capabilities!'

(4)

The coercion to war by the rulers of the US (and Japan and South Korea) as well as by those of China and Russia (and North Korea) is inseparably linked to their coercion of poverty upon the toiling masses in every country in the world.

The Kan-led Japanese imperialist government has placed the whole nation on a war footing against North Korea (and China) in alliance with the Obama-led US imperialist government and the South Korean Lee Myung-Bak government. In the name of a 'responsible policy for security and foreign relations', this government has openly declared that it will relocate the US Marine Base in Futenma to the area off Henoko, Nago City, and that it will move and expand US military drill grounds in Okinawa to various places across the country under the pretext of 'reducing the burden imposed on Okinawa'. This is not all. This government has promised to pay the Obama administration an enormous amount of money to cover the expenses for US forces' transformation, in accordance with a bilateral agreement during the days of former LDP governments headed by Jun'ichiro Koizumi and Shinzo Abe. Not only that, it regards the huge defence budget effectively as a sacred cow. What's worse, in order to secure financial resources for this military expenditure, and to steamroller a corporate tax cut to support monopoly capitalists, this government is watching for a chance to increase the rate of consumption tax (from 5% to 10%).

In this way, the new Kan-led DPJ government that has taken over from the Hatoyama government has thrown away even the previous Hatoyama-Ozawa-style catchwords, 'Free Japan from its excessive dependence on the US' and 'Priority to people's daily lives'. It is launching reactionary offensives more openly than ever to force 'war and poverty' upon the working class and toiling masses in Japan. In spite of this, the Koga leadership of Rengo has expressed its 'full support for the DPJ government' and is ordering its rank-and-file members to devote themselves to vote collecting activities for the coming Upper House elections. The Fuwa-Shii leadership of the JCP has no intention whatever of opposing US, Japanese and South Korean rulers in their preparations for war against North Korea. Far from raising an objection, it has gone so far as to join the chorus of voices citing a North Korean threat. In the end, it has started to praise the Obama administration, the one that had imposed the new US base construction in Henoko upon the Hatoyama government, saying that this administration has 'a receptive ear'.

We denounce the leaderships of the official opposition movements that are perpetrating these criminal acts. We are fighting to achieve a great upsurge of antiwar, anti-Ampo struggle. Our slogans are: 'Oppose the preparation of war against North Korea', 'Stop the new US base construction in Henoko' and 'Remove the Futenma base immediately'. We are also fighting to advance our politico-economic struggle against intensified mass taxation and other expropriation by the government. By advancing these struggles in a unified form, we are striving to form and strengthen the ranks of the working class that can overthrow the Kan government.

Working people all over the world!

Our world today is revealing the characteristics of our times, an age of serious confrontation between the US and China. Under these circumstances, toiling masses all over the world are suffering more and more severely from war and poverty.

We call on every one of you, workers and people.

Let us rise in a fight against war and impoverishment with the aim of radically overcoming the crisis of the dark 21st-century world! Overcome the crisis arising from the death agony of contemporary imperialism and from the contradictions of state capitalism brought about by the descendants of those Stalinists who ruined themselves after they had kept up the pretence of 'socialism'. Let us fight in unison across borders on the basis of proletarian internationalism!

(June 25th, 2010)