By Yang Wenqing

Despite the irreversible aging population, high debt, soaring prices, weakening innovation, and other social and economic problems currently confronting Japan, its total defense-related expenses for fiscal year 2025 reached over 70 billion US dollars, achieving the goal of spending 2% of GDP on defense two years ahead of schedule. Behind Japan's aggressive military buildup, funded by debt and tax hikes, there lingers the stale specter of militarism attempting to make a comeback.

From the perspective of the power dynamics, right-wing forces have now assumed a dominant position in Japanese politics. As the largest party, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) leans to the right as a whole. The opposition parties, such as the Japan Innovation Party  and Sanseito, are "vying to the right" without exception, while the left-wing parties, including the Japanese Communist Party, the Social Democratic Party, and Reiwa Shinsengumi, are declining over time. The Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan and Komeito have jointly formed a new party, the Centrist Reform Alliance (CRA), aiming to counter the ruling coalition led by the far-right politician Sanae Takaichi, though with uncertain prospects for achieving checks and balances. The right-wing forces, choosing a "selective amnesia" of history, have been peddling the fallacy that "aggression is meritorious" to glorify war crimes and stoke extreme nationalism, thereby poisoning Japan's domestic and foreign policies. The dangerous development of the comeback of militarism becomes increasingly evident.

From the perspective of strategic orientation and military shift, by revising "Three Security Documents" at the end of 2022, Japan has initiated a continuous process of breaking through the "exclusively defense-oriented" principle. In recent years, Japan has splurged on purchasing about 400 Tomahawk cruise missiles from the US. Meanwhile, it has been advancing the research and development of multiple series of domestically produced medium-range missiles, accelerating the conversion of its two Izumo-class helicopter destroyers into aircraft carriers, and focusing on takeoff and landing tests of F-35B fighter jets. From the reverse sales of Patriot missiles to the US to fully launching the joint development of next-generation fighters with the UK and Italy, and steadily advancing the export of offensive naval weapons such as frigates to Australia, Japan is notably speeding up its erosion of the "Three Principles on Arms Exports." Now the Takaichi Cabinet adopts a more aggressive defense policy, plotting to revise the Three Non-Nuclear Principles, develop nuclear submarines, further relax restrictions on arms exports, and reinstitute the use of military rank terminology from the former Imperial Japanese Army, such as "Taisa" (Colonel). All the moves have obviously exposed the intention of the Japanese right-wing forces to promote remilitarization.

In terms of actual war preparations, Japan actively supports the US "Indo-Pacific Strategy" and strives to enhance its influence in regional affairs. In recent years, Japan has spared no effort to turn the southwestern islands into fortifications and battlefields, attempting to use them as the "bridgeheads" for containing other countries and the "forward bases" for military intervention. On the one hand, Japan is accelerating the deployment of missile forces, planning to build more than a hundred new large ammunition depots, and renovating dozens of civilian airports and ports to military standards. On the other hand, it implements a series of preparations simultaneously, including the construction of shelter facilities for the islanders and the formulation of evacuation plans for the islanders to the main islands. Some right-wing elements in Japan are vigorously advocating "war narratives," such as "Japan will inevitably be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait" and "the intensified preparations for joint operations by Japan and the US are for maintaining regional peace and stability," in a vain attempt to shape public opinion in advance for interfering in the Taiwan Strait situation.

Since Japanese militarism has never been thoroughly purged, many of Japan's ruling politicians and military industry magnates have intricate ties with the remnants of militarism. The Japanese right-wing's obsession with military power and actions of armament buildup at present are strikingly similar to the scenes of Japan's "meticulous war preparations" in the past. The international community should remain highly vigilant, resolutely curb the recurrence of the specter of militarism, and firmly safeguard the post-war international order and international fairness and justice.