BEIJING, May 9 -- "We firmly oppose the Japanese government using the so-called 'free and open Indo-Pacific' and 'security cooperation' as pretexts to incite bloc confrontation, form exclusive 'small circles', undermine the strategic security and interests of other countries, and find excuses for its military buildup," said Senior Colonel Jiang Bin, spokesperson for China's Ministry of National Defense (MND), at a press briefing on Saturday.

It's reported that Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi recently visited Australia and Vietnam to boost security cooperation, where she touted a so-called updated "free and open Indo-Pacific" vision and clamored that Japan's post-war constitution, drafted under US occupation, should be periodically revised.

This year marks the 80th anniversary of the commencement of the Tokyo Trials. To comment on that, the spokesperson also reaffirmed the authority of the Tokyo Trials, stressing that over the past eight decades, right-wing forces in Japan have spared no effort in downplaying and challenging the solemn ruling of the Tokyo Trials that embodies human conscience and historical justice, distorting and denying the well-documented facts of Japanese militarists' crimes of aggression.

"Class-A war criminals, guilty of heinous atrocities, have been glorified as 'heroes' and enshrined at the Yasukuni Shrine. Post-war Japanese governments did promise to uphold the pacifist constitution and pursue the path of a peaceful nation. Later on, they started to pay lip service and took few actions to back up such promise. Nowadays, the Sanae Takaichi administration openly pushes for amending Japan's constitution. This shows that the Japanese right-wing forces are shedding their pretence, and shifting from covert military buildup to overt war preparation, making Japan's 'neo-militarism' a growing and more prominent threat to regional peace," said the spokesperson.

"The call of the times is for peace and cooperation rather than war and confrontation," said the spokesperson, urging the Japanese government to stop its hypocritical self-glorification and rein in its dangerous ambition of military expansion and war preparation, demonstrate the courage to face up to history, and take concrete actions to atone for its past crimes, so as to earn the trust of its Asian neighbors and the international community.