Tens of thousands of peace protesters thronged the streets of central Tokyo on Sunday, in the largest demonstrations yet against Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s controversial plans to alter Japan’s military stance.
The protests are a culmination of weeks of demonstrations and come at a time when China’s military aggrandisement and breakneck physical expansion of islands in the South China Sea is perceived in some quarters as a rising threat to Asian stability.
Attended by 120,000, the protest on Sunday was the latest attempt to convince politicians to vote against a set of security bills that would, among other changes, allow Japan to join in collective self-defence with its allies and to dispatch its military to fight abroad.