SNA (Tokyo) — The Draft Resolution of the Japanese Communist Party 27th Congress is a 50-page document outlining the party’s basic views on policy and public affairs. The 27th Congress, now being held in Atami City, Shizuoka Prefecture, will formally adopt this resolution in the course of the meeting, which is scheduled to be concluded on January 18.

The following portions of the text reflect the unofficial English translation of the document, though no major changes are expected. These excerpts focus on Japan Communist Party’s analysis of the United States, and give up-to-date insight regarding the party’s views of the global superpower:

In 2001, the Bush administration of the U.S. launched the war against Afghanistan as a retaliatory response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and then moved to the military aggression against Iraq in 2003. These military interventions claimed at least hundreds of thousands of innocent civilian lives, begot a quagmire of civil wars, spread terrorism around the world, and became the major cause of the rise of the extremist armed group of ISIL. The reality of the past 15 years of world affairs clearly shows that the U.S. militaristic hegemonism has resulted in total failure.

The Obama administration, which took office in 2009 giving itself a mandate to change the Bush politics, rather sought various diplomatic efforts by oftentimes engaging in international or regional institutions while avoiding an additional large-scale military intervention. These efforts resulted in the agreement on the nuclear program of Iran, the restoration of the diplomatic relations with Cuba, and the new global agreement to tackle the climate change.

Nevertheless, Afghanistan and Iraq are still in turmoil of civil war. Though the number of U.S. troops stationing there is down from its peak, nearly 10,000 U.S. soldiers are still deployed in Afghanistan. Airstrikes, unmanned aerial vehicle attacks, and military campaigns conducted by U.S. special operations forces are also seen in Iraq. Syria is in a quagmire of civil war compounded by the military intervention of U.S. and NATO forces as well as Russian, causing numerous civilian casualties accompanied by refugees and internal displaced persons whose number in total has amounted to more than 10 million. The U.S. has been expanding its military footholds in Africa and other areas.

The 2015 U.S. National Security Strategy issued by the Obama administration still declared its readiness to carry out a preemptive attack, stating, “The United States will use military force, unilaterally if necessary,” and its posture to act in disregard of the U.N., stating, “[The U.S.] will act alone, if necessary.” The U.S. strategy of militaristic hegemon-seeking, even ready to resort to a preemptive strike in defiance of the U.N. and its Charter, has never changed at all.

President Obama said, “In Iraq, the United States learned the hard lesson that even hundreds of thousands of brave, effective troops, trillions of dollars from our Treasury, cannot by itself impose stability on a foreign land.” He also admitted, “[T]he emergence of al Qaeda in Iraq has now evolved into ISIL.”

Yet, nothing has been done to fundamentally review the U.S. military-centered hegemon-seeking strategy which brought about what we are now facing.

The U.S. militaristic hegemonism is reaching a dead end with no chance to escape from and doomed to total failure. And, following this failed path, such as Abe government’s national security legislation, will never have the bright future…

…The U.S. society has undergone the expanding of inequality and poverty, and faced the deadlock and contradiction resulting from the long-continued neo-liberalist economic policy under the global capitalism which relentlessly rewards profit-seekers of multi-national large corporations. Though the Obama administration attempted to partially arrest the trend by taking some measures such as the introduction of a new health care insurance system, the inequality and poverty has expanded to the degree that the wealthiest who amounts for only 1% of the total population gains 22% of the total income, and the hollowing-out of domestic industries and the serious decline of the middle class has progressed.

The result of the U.S. presidential election in November 2016 in which Mr. Donald Trump (Republican) won was a reflection of the serious deadlock and contradiction the U.S. society has been bogged down in. Mr. Trump criticized the “vested interests,” but fell short of presenting his alternative policy to break the deadlock. He also made a series of worrisome remarks on, among other things, the immigrant issue. We will pay close attention to what he is going to propose in his presidency…

…In the U.S., Senator Bernie Sanders who describes his own political position as a “democratic socialist” and opposed the war against Iraq from the onset, put up a very good fight in the presidential primary election in the Democratic Party with great appeal to young generations. He called for “politics not for 1% (, or the wealthiest) but for 99% (, or ordinary people).” What was seen there was the anger and frustration against the current status of the U.S. politics and its enablers in the political establishment, and the desire for the fundamental change of such politics.

The burning “Sanders fever” has its root in the popular movements in the U.S. One of those movements underlying the Sanders phenomenon is the 2011 “Occupy Wall Street” movement in which citizens called for the elimination of greed and corruption of the top 1% of the wealthiest by appealing people to “occupy” the Wall Street in New York City, a center of the U.S. financial industry. Though the movement apparently lasted only in a few months, it has resurfaced in a different form, or the widespread grass-roots support for the senator.

The other important underlying movement is the U.S.-wide movement demanding to raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour, started in fall of 2012 by strikes demanding $15 an hour wage conducted by workers of Walmart, an American multinational retail corporation, and fast food workers in New York City. The movement to fight for $15 not only has succeeded to win pay-raises in Walmart and other various workplaces but also has helped raise the minimum wage in a state-level such as New York and California realizing “$15 an hour wage.”

These new waves sweeping through the West has resonated with our growing cooperation among opposition parties and citizens’ movements in Japan as common aspirations to achieve social change by expanding solidarity with various new popular movements which seek to overcome poverty and inequality as well as to promote peace.

The opening day of the 27th Congress of the Japan Communist Party

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