Amid nationwide protests in Japan against the government's dangerous moves concerning nuclear issues and calls for upholding the country's pacifist principles, a ceremony marking the 81st anniversary of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki was held on August 9 at the Nagasaki Peace Park. Days earlier, the bell at Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park had also tolled.

The "Peace Bell" rings every year, carrying ordinary people's hopes of escaping the horrors of war. However, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's remarks at the two memorial events were particularly jarring, exposing the carefully crafted "peace narrative" she has sought to portray.

First, mourning the victims of the atomic bombings while remaining completely silent on why the bombs were dropped. In her remarks, Sanae Takaichi repeatedly invoked Japan's history as a "victim of atomic bombings," highlighting its status as "the only country to have suffered atomic bombings." Meanwhile, she deliberately downplayed the tens of millions of fatalitiesinflicted on victimized countries by Japan's aggression. This selective narrative, which constantly reinforces Japan's identity as a "victim" while evading its responsibility as an "aggressor," severs the historical causal links between the outbreak and escalation of the war and Japan’s eventual defeat. It seeks to evade responsibility for aggression by garnering sympathy.

Second, claiming that it currently adheres to the "Three Non-Nuclear Principles" while remaining ambiguous about whether it will continue to uphold them and repeatedly testing the boundaries of its nuclear policy. At both memorial ceremonies, she failed to explicitly state that Japan would maintain the "Three Non-Nuclear Principles". Japan's Mainichi Shimbun noted that her reference to maintaining the "Three Non-Nuclear Principles" merely described the current status quo and did not constitute a clear commitment to continue adhering to the principles in the future. The remarks appeared to deliberately leave room for adjusting the principles when the government revises the three national security documents before the end of this year. The Asahi Shimbun raised a pointed question: For a country that has itself suffered atomic bombings, is further reliance on nuclear weapons really the right path?

The "Three Non-Nuclear Principles" of not possessing, not producing and not permitting the introduction of nuclear weapons have been Japan's basic policy on nuclear weapons since they were adopted by the House of Representatives in a plenary session in 1971. However, before taking office, Takaichi openly advocated revising the "Three Non-Nuclear Principles". After becoming prime minister, she adopted an ambiguous stance when questioned on whether she would continue to uphold the principles. Officials at the Prime Minister's Office and cabinet members under her administration have gone even further, openly advocating that Japan should possess nuclear weapons and calling for policies related to nuclear weapons to be discussed without taboos. Japan's nuclear ambitions have thus been laid bare. Meanwhile, Japan has continued to strengthen its cooperation on the so-called extended deterrence, promote the development of nuclear-powered submarines, and seek enhanced US nuclear protection. All these moves have posed a real threat to regional peace and stability.

As a non-nuclear-weapon state party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), Japan has an unequivocal and non-negotiable international legal obligation to refrain from acquiring, producing, possessing or proliferating nuclear weapons. There is no room for bargaining over this obligation. At the same time, Japan is widely recognized as a nuclear-threshold state, possessing a large stockpile of separated plutonium and deliberately maintaining the capability to achieve a nuclear breakthrough in a short period of time. If Japan attempts to break through the "Three Non-Nuclear Principles", promote nuclear sharing, or even introduce allied nuclear weapons into Japan, it would undermine the international nuclear non-proliferation regime and the postwar international order, aggravate regional security risks, and require the international community to remain highly vigilant.

In recent years, Japan has repeatedly attempted to break through the constraints of the postwar peace framework: from continuously and substantially increasing defense spending, to lifting the ban on the export of lethal weapons, expanding offensive military capabilities, and advocating the goal of becoming a "war-capable" country. Such actions have long run counter to the very concept of a so-called "peaceful nation." Japan's newly released Defense of Japan white paper continues to hype so-called security threats from surrounding countries and seek excuses for expanding its military capabilities, drawing strong criticism from the Japanese public and neighboring countries.

Japanese militarism once unleashed catastrophic suffering to the world and inflicted enormous harm on the Japanese people as well. The bells of Nagasaki and Hiroshima have tolled once again as a stark warning: only by squarely confronting the history of aggression, learning lessons from war, honoring its commitments to peace, abandoning its nuclear ambitions, upholding the "Three Non-Nuclear Principles,"and stopping its reckless advance down the irreversible path of neo-militarism can the Japanese government act responsibly toward its own people and regain the trust of its Asian neighbors and the international community.

(The author is Zhu Wanjun, a Xinhua News Agency reporter.)