Article 9 revision centres on a possible conflict over the Taiwan Strait, a clear red line for China, which regards Taiwan as a ‘renegade province’. Taiwan was a Japanese colony, seized after the 1894-95 Sino-Japanese War. Given that history, revising article 9 to ‘defend’ Taiwan amounts to a provocation. Takaichi’s statement to parliament in November that a Taiwan contingency would be a Japan contingency has angered China as never before.

Revision would also lift the legal restraint on offensive military action, allowing Japan to operate beyond the strictly defensive posture it has maintained for over 75 years. The regional consequences would be severe. A Japanese commitment to intervene over Taiwan would transform the security environment, risk a Chinese military build-up and trap all sides in a cycle of escalation. Article 9 has acted as a brake on remilitarisation. Scrapping it would release that brake at the very moment tensions are highest.

Public opposition to the war on Iran runs at 82 per cent, and that constrains Takaichi even though she has tied Japan closely to the USA. She may have wanted to comply with Donald Trump, but the strength of opposition forced her to invoke article 9 to refuse his request for Japan to join operations in the Strait of Hormuz. Popular pressure still works as a brake on executive power.

Japan was not alone in turning Trump down, so he has not disowned Takaichi. But the episode exposes Japan’s fragility. It is dependent on an unstable USA while burning its bridges with China. Strip away article 9 and Japan loses even this limited capacity to resist US pressure or refuse a request to go to war. Takaichi would have no constitutional grounds to say no.

Article 9 has defended peace by keeping Japan out of US wars. Just as importantly, it has defended democracy, the right of people to govern themselves rather than have the US set their policy. Popular sovereignty means little if Japan is bound by US military decisions.

Article 9 has already been hollowed out through reinterpretation and a de facto military build-up, yet people keep fighting to protect it. Formal amendment would signal that constitutional limits on executive power can simply be removed. Citizens would lose any legal basis to challenge military decisions, and the government could argue that security overrides democratic debate. The revision process itself harms democracy by shutting down debate and delegitimising those who oppose it.

Formally revising article 9 is a gamble, because the provision remains popular. But the government controls parliament, business and the media, which lets it shape who is represented and what gets discussed. Conservatives are eyeing a different constitutional amendment first as a Trojan horse to wear down resistance to changing article 9.

The parliamentary opposition is weak and would struggle to stop a referendum without mass protests on the streets. Social media, dominated by conservative tech giants, makes mobilising harder. Even so, the fact that well over 50,000 people turned up in the April protests nationwide shows real momentum. For the pro-peace, pro-democracy movement, failure is not an option. What’s at stake goes far beyond military policy: whether Japan remains a constitutional democracy in which people govern themselves, or becomes an extension of US strategy in Asia.