Over 10,000 take to streets in Tokyo to say No to PM Abe

Participants hold signs, reading No to the Abe Administration, during a mass rally at an outdoor concert hall in the heart of Tokyo, March 22, 2015. [Photo/IC]

The hawkish leader slashed comments saying the collective defense will drag Japan into war by criticizing that "the absurd remarks are irresponsible and instigating anxiety."

The Abe's cabinet, through reinterpreting the country's pacifist Constitution, gave a green light last year to allow the country's Self-Defense Forces (SDF) to exercise the right to collective self-defense and the government is accelerating relevant legislation so as to legally dispatch SDF troops overseas.

The Japanese supreme law bans the SDF to engage conflicts abroad and the overhaul of the defense policy is questioned widely in Japan as it goes contrary to the war-renouncing constitution.

Japan's ruling camp on Friday reached a formal agreement on the outline of security legislation that would greatly expand the scope of overseas operations by the SDF, paving the way for the government to draft a series of security bills to make one of the most drastic changes to Japan's postwar security stance.

As the Abe's administration walks a right-leaning and historical revisionism politics, the prime minister's attempt to loosen the tightrope on Japan's "purely defensive defense policy" also triggers concerns among its neighboring countries.