By Zhong Sheng
On October 17, Sanae Takaichi made a ritual offering of a "masakaki" tree stand to the notorious Yasukuni Shrine, which enshrines Japanese Class-A war criminals from World War II, in her capacity as prime minister. On October 19, she entrusted a senior Liberal Democratic Party official with making a ritual offering to the Yasukuni Shrine. Japanese political leaders have repeatedly made offerings to or visited Yasukuni Shrine despite repeated opposition from peace-loving forces at home and the international community. Such actions desecrate historical justice, challenge the bottom line of civilization, and provoke the postwar international order.
Time and again, Japanese political leaders have bowed in homage at Yasukuni Shrine. What they worship is not "deities," but their persistent attachment to the old militarist dream. Yasukuni Shrine has never been merely a religious site for ritual observances. It is a spiritual tool and symbol of Japanese militarists' war of aggression.
Sanae Takaichi talks about peace while making ritual offerings to the war-linked Yasukuni Shrine. Her “mask of peace” is an open mockery of historical justice. Before taking office as prime minister, she visited Yasukuni Shrine for many consecutive years. Since taking office, she has resorted to "indirect homage to war criminals" by making ritual offerings and cash offerings instead—at least four times this year alone. While touting her pursuit of peace and staging a "kneeling" spectacle in Australia, Takaichi pays homage to the chief culprits of war, denies the Nanjing Massacre and espouses a distorted view of history. Her hypocrisy lays bare the Japanese right wing's obsession with reviving militarism and its inherent drive for aggression and expansion abroad.
Driven by a distorted view of history, Japan has continued to break through the constraints of the postwar order since Takaichi took office, with its militarist ambitions becoming increasingly brazen. For fiscal year 2026, Japan's defense budget has exceeded 9 trillion yen, marking 14 consecutive years of growth and a record pace of expansion in the postwar era.
Japan has deployed for the first time long-range missiles with "enemy-base strike capability," comprehensively eased restrictions on lethal weapons exports, and continued to hollow out the principle of "exclusively defense-oriented policy." For the first time, it has participated in the US-Philippine Balikatan joint military exercise as a full participant and fired offensive shore-based anti-ship missiles overseas, while also pushing to reorganize the Air Self-Defense Force into the "Air and Space Self-Defense Force," steadily extending the reach of its so-called "security" agenda overseas...No matter what "threat" pretexts Japanese politicians invent, they cannot conceal Japan's real aim of accelerating "remilitarization" and advancing "neo-militarism."
This year marks the 80th anniversary of the opening of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, commonly known as the Tokyo Trials. The International Military Tribunal for the Far East, through its solemn judgment, forever branded Hideki Tojo and other Japanese Class-A war criminals with infamy, upheld international justice and laid the legal foundation for the postwar international order. Japanese leaders' visits to and ritual offerings at Yasukuni Shrine amount to an open denial of the verdicts of the Tokyo Trials, an open defiance of historical justice and human conscience, and an open challenge to the victory of World War II and the postwar international order. The international community and people of conscience firmly oppose such acts.
The evidence of Japanese militarism's crimes of aggression is irrefutable. History must not be rewritten, and justice must not be desecrated. If Japan continues to defy the historical trend and pursue its misguided course, it will ultimately find itself once again in the dock of history and be condemned by the international community.