By Ye Shuhong
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi recently once again openly sent ritual offerings and monetary contributions to the war-linked Yasukuni Shrine, while a number of government officials, senior figures in the Liberal Democratic Party, and Diet members visited the shrine to pay homage. These latest negative moves once again show that Japan's ruling authorities are taking a major step backward in their understanding of history, recklessly trampling on historical justice, and hurtling down the path of "remilitarization."
In the first half of the 20th century, Japan fully embarked on a course of militarist aggression and expansion. Claiming that Japan’s ability to safeguard its national security was being constrained, the military authorities abandoned naval arms control treaties, rendered cabinet oversight ineffective, and tore apart the international and domestic legal frameworks that restricted military expansion.
Turning to the present, Japan's ruling authorities have put forward a series of moves: revising the "Three Principles on Transfer of Defense Equipment and Technology," lifting restrictions on lethal weapons exports, and even seeking to undermine the "Three Non-Nuclear Principles" and testing the waters for acquiring nuclear-powered submarines as part of revisions to the country's three security documents. How closely this resembles the removal of restraints and the headlong rush toward militarism in the past! The pacifist Constitution and the principle of an "exclusively defense-oriented policy," which have underpinned post-war Japan, are now being tested and breached through "salami-slicing" tactics, steadily eroding their substance and effectiveness.
More dangerous than the dismantling of institutional restraints is the collapse of ideological defenses against militarism. Japanese militarism was able to turn millions of citizens into cannon fodder through a carefully constructed web of lies. Abroad, it portrayed aggression as the so-called "self-preservation and self-defense" and a "Great East Asia War." At home, it brutally suppressed anti-war speech and promoted a narrow, delusional, emperor-centered view of history, driving society as a whole into irrationality through a hysterical "victim mentality" and blind enthusiasm for war.
Today, Japan's ruling authorities deny the country's history of aggression, glorify war crimes, and pay homage to World War II war criminals, while exaggerating security "threats" in the surrounding region and accelerating "remilitarization." They are doing their utmost to make the public forget Japan's historical culpability as an aggressor state, while continually heightening the sense of being "surrounded by enemies." Manufacturing imaginary enemies to rally "public opinion" behind military expansion and an arms buildup is a familiar tactic of Japanese militarism.
Alongside this distortion of domestic politics comes a high-stakes geostrategic gamble. Japan's ruling authorities now unquestioningly serve strategies of geopolitical rivalry and bloc confrontation, willingly acting as pawns. This goes beyond mere subservience: it is a calculated effort by Japan's right-wing forces to use their alignment with allies as a justification for breaking free of the constraints of the pacifist Constitution and fulfilling their long-held ambition of making Japan a "major military power." This opportunistic mindset of staking the nation's fate on geopolitical contests is no different from the reckless adventurism of the past.
The need to guard against this so-called "new prewar state" lies precisely in its potential to deceive the Japanese public. Military expansion is packaged as "ensuring security," the development of the arms industry is portrayed as "revitalizing the economy," and the abandonment of post-war obligations and commitments is presented as necessary for "becoming a normal country."
Peace-loving forces must recognize that the dangerous moves by Japan's ruling authorities constitute a systematic rollback aimed at overturning the post-war order of peace, rather than a series of isolated policy adjustments. Only by thoroughly rooting out the pernicious legacy of militarism and upholding the bottom line of the pacifist Constitution can they rein in the "gray rhino" of "neo-militarism" as it mutates, spirals out of control, and charges ahead ever faster.
Editor's Note: Originally published by xinhuanet.com, this article is translated from Chinese into English and edited by the China Military Online. The information and opinions in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of eng.chinamil.com.cn.