Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, battling scandal at home and facing collateral damage from a possible US-China trade war, has pledged to push ahead with his divisive plan to revise the “peace clause” of Japan’s constitution.

His speech on Sunday to the annual meeting of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party came with an apology for a cronyism scandal that has exposed document falsification at the finance ministry, dragged Mr Abe’s approval ratings to their lowest level since 2012 and threatened his hopes of becoming the country’s longest serving postwar prime minister.

Nevertheless, Mr Abe told the convention that “now is the time” to amend the constitution, a mission upon which the LDP was founded in 1955 and in which Mr Abe himself is a devoted believer.