Read: Letter of Protest from the Asia-Wide Campaign addressed to Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and Defense Minister Gen Nakatani, demanding the cancellation of the Self-Defense Forces’ participation in the upcoming US-Philippine Balikatan Exercise 2025.

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Letter of Protest

Stop the Self-Defense Forces’ participation

in the US-Philippines joint military exercise Balikatan 25!

From April 21 to May 9, the joint military exercise Balikatan 25 will be held in the Philippines and its surrounding waters hosted by the United States and the Philippines. The Japanese Self-Defense Forces (SDF) announced that the SDF troops plan to participate in this military exercises. We oppose the Balikatan exercise, which raises military tensions in the Asia-Pacific region. At the same time, we firmly demand that the SDFs’ participation in the exercise be suspended.

Under the ‘Indo-Pacific Strategy,’ the U.S. and Japanese governments have tried to tighten the military encirclement of China along the so-called “First Island Chain.” The annual US-Philippines Balikatan exercise and the strengthening of the US military presence in the Philippines are parts of this effort.

This year’s Balikatan exercise will be carried out with around 16,000 military personnel. As the U.S. Secretary of Defense Hegseth announced at the US-Philippines defense ministers’ meeting in late March, the U.S. forces will deploy the newt weaponry, including the Nemesis land-to-ship missile-equipped vehicle and unmanned surface vessels. Special operations forces from both of the U.S. and the Philippines are planning to conduct landing operation drills in the Batanes Islands, located just 140 km from Taiwan. Such provocative actions only increase military tensions in the region. It must be stopped immediately.

At the same time, we strongly demand to stop the SDFs’ participation in the Balikatan 25. Until last year, the SDFs had sent senior personnel to this exercise as observers. But this year, they plan to participate in the joint military exercise officially. Around 150 troops from the Ground, Air and Naval Self-Defense Forces, including the Ground SDFs’ Central Transport Force, the Air SDFs’ Air Support Group and the SDFs’ Maritime Transport Group, will be dispatched to the Philippines. The SDFs’ destroyer Yahagi will be join the Multinational Maritime Drills as a field training exercise. This will drastically raise the level of the SDFs’ participation in the US-Philippines joint military exercises.

Recently, the Japanese government has pushed through military cooperation with Philippines, such as by providing a coastal surveillance radar system to the Philippine Navy through the Government Security Assistance Program (OSA). Furthermore, as the first U.S.-Japan-Philippines trilateral summit held in April last year clearly showed, military collaboration among the three countries is also developing now.

The Japanese government also try to ratify the Japan-Philippines “Reciprocal Access Agreement” in the ongoing Diet session. Through it, the Japanese government try to pave the way for the possible SDFs’ stationing in the Philippines. It also aims to expand he SDFs’ deployment in Asia using the Philippines as a foothold. We strongly condemn the SDFs’ participation in the Balikatan exercise, which is being carried out as an extension of those efforts. For the same reasons, we oppose the planned Prime Minister Ishiba’s visit to the Philippines during the Golden Week holidays this year.

In the modern history, Japan once occupied the Philippines and inflicted enormous casualties on the Filipino people, including the victims of the Japanese military sexual slavery system and the Bataan Death March, etc. An official apology from the Japanese government and state compensation to the victims must be realized. We thoroughly denounce the Japanese government and the Ministry of Defense for its ignoring reflection of history and for recent massive military expansion. We strongly demand the cancellation of the SDFs’ participation in the upcoming US-Philippines joint military exercise Balikatan 25.

AWC-Japan