BEIJING, April 1 (Xinhua) — A recent alarming incident in Tokyo has once again brought the growing risks of Japan’s neo-militarism into sharp focus.
On March 24, a member of Japan’s Ground Self-Defense Force forcibly broke into the Chinese Embassy in Japan. The intruder, armed with a knife, threatened to kill Chinese diplomatic personnel, which is both shocking and deeply concerning. Such an appalling act exposes the reckless frenzy driving Japan’s resurgent militarism, a dangerous trajectory that, if left unchecked, threatens to spell disaster for regional and global peace.
Compounding this alarm was another deeply unsettling development on the same day: Japan’s Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology reviewed high school textbooks to be used from 2027 that distort history. Some textbooks include descriptions suggesting there was no coercion regarding “comfort women” and forced labor, while asserting that Diaoyu Dao is “Japan’s inherent territory.”
Such manipulative acts are simply long-term deliberate attempts by Japan’s right-wing forces to whitewash past aggression, evade historical responsibility and blatantly undermine the post-war world order. These politically motivated falsehoods will never prevail over historical facts.
Fundamentally, Japan has failed to make a clean break with militarism. The two latest developments highlight the evil legacy of its past militarism and fascism, which inflicted untold suffering in China and other countries through wars of aggression and colonial rule. They also lay bare the toxicity of the Japanese government’s erroneous policies on vital issues concerning China-Japan relations such as history and Taiwan.
The textbook whitewashing is both a key symptom and a catalyst of this dangerous surging neo-militarist ideology. A survey by Japan’s public media organization NHK last year showed that 48 percent of respondents said they did not know that Japan’s war against other Asian countries was a war of aggression, while 16 percent thought it was not a war of aggression. Additionally, exhibits related to Japan’s wartime aggression have been scaled back or removed in some museums.
When distorted historical narratives are intertwined with expansionist security policies, the consequences can be catastrophic. It is very concerning that in recent years, Japan has drastically readjusted its security policy, increased its defense spending year after year, relaxed restrictions on arms exports, sought to develop offensive weapons, and planned to abandon its three non-nuclear principles. Japan’s right-wing provocateurs are trying every means available to break free from the country’s pacifist constitution, venturing further down a road of military buildup. All of these steps signal a clear trajectory of remilitarization.
Japan’s remilitarization efforts pose a grave threat to peace and stability in the neighboring region and the world as a whole. This danger was starkly highlighted last November when Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi made comments that implied the possibility of Japan’s armed intervention in the Taiwan Strait.
The accelerated rightward shift of Japan’s political landscape is making a country that waged wars of aggression in its history once again loom large as a real threat to peace. Undoubtedly, returning to the evil path of militarism will only steer Japan toward a catastrophic dead end.
The embassy intrusion incident must serve as a stark wake-up call: it is imperative that the Japanese side should have a close and brutally honest look at itself and rein in its perilous slide into neo-militarism before it is too late. ■
