By Xiang Haoyu
On August 15, the 81st anniversary of Japan's unconditional surrender, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi made a ritual offering to Yasukuni Shrine, where Class-A war criminals of World War II are enshrined. Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi and several other Cabinet members, leaders of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), and around 90 lawmakers from both ruling and opposition parties collectively visited the shrine. At the National Memorial Service for the War Dead held by the Japanese government, Takaichi made no mention in her remarks of Japan's responsibility for aggression, reflection on the war, or apologies to the victim countries. At the important juncture of the 80th anniversary of the opening of the Tokyo Trials, Japan's series of egregious actions on historical issues represent a concentrated manifestation of Japanese right-wing forces' systematic distortion of history and accelerated push for "remilitarization". These actions once again expose the dangerous agenda of Japan's ruling authorities to promote historical revisionism and challenge the postwar international order.
It is well known that the Yasukuni Shrine is by no means an ordinary private religious site, but a spiritual tool and symbol of Japanese militarism in launching wars of aggression abroad. Enshrined there are 14 Class-A war criminals, including Hideki Tojo, Iwane Matsui, and Kenji Doihara, who bore direct responsibility for the wars of aggression. It is nothing but a shrine for war criminals. These chief culprits of Japanese militarism have been permanently branded as a disgrace in the annals of human history. Visits or ritual offerings by Japanese politicians to the "war criminal shrine," in whatever form, serve to downplay Japan's war guilt and attempt to reverse the verdict on its history of aggression. Such actions not only desecrate historical justice and challenge the bottom line of human civilization, but also constitute an open provocation against the postwar international order.
For years, Japan's right-wing forces have made one troubling move after another over the issue of the "war criminal shrine," with such moves becoming more provocative this year.
The visits involved higher-ranking officials. In addition to Sanae Takaichi's ritual offering to the shrine, four Cabinet members visited the shrine, the highest number of Cabinet members to do so in recent years. The LDP Secretary-General, General CouncilChairperson, and Election Strategy Committee Chairperson visited the shrine together for the first time, fully exposing the extreme right-wing political orientation of the Takaichi government.
The moves have become more provocative. As the head of Japan's Self-Defense Forces, Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi paid homage to war criminals, which has severely distorted the Japanese public's understanding of history at home and sent a dangerous signal of Japan's military adventurism to the international community. The deliberate alignment of senior officials wielding military power with symbols of Japan's militarist past shows that Japan is attempting to reverse the verdict onhistory and seeking military expansion. Japan's neo-militarism has become a real threat.
Official statements have regressed. At the official memorial ceremonies, Sanae Takaichi deliberately avoided key terms such as "aggression" and "reflection", while continuing to promote in Japanese societya one-sided wartime narrative portraying Japan as a "victim", in an attempt to downplay its responsibility for aggression. Such an approach is systematically eroding the pacifist consensus that has taken shape in postwarJapanese society, with the fundamental aim of removing public opposition to further military buildup and expansion.
At present, the military expansion measures pursued by the Takaichi administration have comprehensively breached the framework of the "exclusively defense-oriented policy" and are fundamentally deviating from Japan's postwar path of peaceful development, putting the country back on the path toward becoming a "war-capable state"bent on military expansion. Japan's defense budget has surged year after year, and its defense budget for fiscal year 2027 may exceed 10 trillion yen. Spending is focused on developing preemptive long-range strike capabilities and building up new combat capabilities involving unmanned systems, artificial intelligence, space, and cyber technologies. The Takaichi administration has also fully lifted restrictions on lethal weapons exports and vigorously promoted the revival of the defense industry, attempting to replicate the World War II model of "using civilian industries to support the military" and "embedding military capabilities in civilian sectors" in preparation for a protracted war. More alarmingly, the Takaichi administration is seeking to revise Article 9 of Japan's pacifist Constitution and explicitly recognize the Self-Defense Forces in the Constitution, thereby completely breaking free, at the legal level, from the constraints of the postwar peace framework. Senior officials have also openly floated the idea of revising Japan's Three Non-Nuclear Principles and even revealed ambitions to possess nuclear weapons, posing a serious threat to the international nuclear non-proliferation regime and regional peace and stability.
The postwar international system centered on the United Nations is a hard-won achievement of peace secured at the cost of tens of millions of lives. A series of international legal documents, including the Potsdam Proclamation and the Cairo Declaration, as well as the judgment of the Tokyo Trials, have long clearly established Japan's responsibility for its crimes of aggression and its postwar obligations. Japanese politicians' paying homage to the "war criminal shrine" and evasion of historical responsibility, coupled with a dangerous and radical policy shift, are steadily eroding the foundations of Japan's postwar peaceful development and peace and stability in East Asia. If Japan insists on going against the trend of the times, continues to evade reflection on its history, and allows extreme right-wing thinking to spread at home, it will once again drop into the abyss.
(The author is from the Department for Asia-Pacific Studies at the China Institute of International Studies)