Beware of Japan’s cognitive warfare disguised as leisure

The Japanese protest in opposition to the Sanae Takaichi authorities’s insurance policies in Tokyo, Japan, July 25, 2026. /VCG

Editor’s be aware: Cao Cong, a particular commentator for CGTN, is a doctoral candidate on the School of Global and Regional Studies, University of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. The article displays the creator’s opinions and never essentially the views of CGTN.

The controversy surrounding Japanese TV drama VIVANT raises questions that go far past creative expression. The suspense thriller sequence packages Japanese intelligence operatives’ abroad actions as heroic exploits and tries to whip up a “China threat” narrative. The intention is obvious. It is a part of Japan’s cognitive warfare in opposition to China, this time utilizing popular culture to form perceptions and safety points, and affect judgments about its altering safety coverage.

The drama portrays an imaginary “Chinese secret intelligence organization” as a ruthless enemy, whose members chop off individuals’s fingers and perform stabbings, whereas directing sympathy across the actions of Japanese operatives. National identification, violence, victimhood and heroism are woven right into a nationalistic narrative with a transparent emotional path.

First, a picture of the “enemy” is manufactured. Abstract safety threats are given recognizable faces and terrifying strategies to create a way of imminent hazard. Viewers might not bear in mind precisely what Japanese coverage paperwork say about China, however they’re prone to bear in mind Chinese characters inflicting violence and Japanese characters struggling.

This is supposed to legitimize Japan’s abroad operations. The extra brutally the protagonists are proven as having been handled, the simpler it turns into to win assist for his or her retaliation. Questions about whether or not their actions violate one other nation’s sovereignty and accountability are pushed apart by tales of “rescue,” “self-defense” and “protecting Japan.”

Ultimately, that is an affront to historic reminiscence. The torture depicted within the drama is an inversion of the strategies of torture utilized by invading Japanese forces in opposition to Chinese resistance fighters. The struggling inflicted on the Chinese by Japanese militarist aggression should not be forgotten. Attributing comparable brutality to up to date Chinese characters whereas casting the Japanese as victims combating again inevitably raises questions in regards to the reversal of perpetrator and sufferer roles.

Historical duty can’t be erased by shifting the digicam’s perspective, nor can warfare crimes be diminished by recasting the characters. Creators can’t disregard the historic context, a lot much less construct sympathy for their very own nation by stigmatizing a neighboring nation that after bore the brunt of its aggression. Repeatedly reinforcing a way of nationwide victimhood whereas whitewashing the historical past of hurt inflicted on others will solely weaken Japanese society’s capability to replicate critically on warfare.

The narrative of this product that purports to be leisure in actuality echoes Japan’s precise safety discourse on China.

Japan revised its three key safety paperwork in 2022, characterizing China as its “unprecedented and the greatest strategic challenge.” This can also be reiterated within the newest Defense of Japan white paper in 2026. The airing of the TV sequence coincides with the promotion of this coverage agenda and its accompanying public messaging. Its narrative and the official line on China reinforce each other, inserting the drama on the cultural finish of a broader strategy of cognitive warfare.

People go to the Museum of the War of the Chinese People’s Resistance Against Japanese Aggression in Beijing, China, September 2, 2025. /VCG

Japan’s official coverage paperwork set up safety judgments about China; display narratives can flip these judgments into worry and anger that audiences really feel instantly. For Japan’s right-wing forces, a China perceived as harmful, merciless and impervious to dialogue makes it simpler to argue for stronger armaments and expanded abroad army actions.  

When threats are repeatedly amplified, army restraints will be portrayed as shackles. In such an environment, postwar safeguards – together with Japan’s pacifist structure, the completely defense-oriented coverage and the Three Non-Nuclear Principles – to not possess, produce, or allow the introduction of nuclear weapons into Japanese territory – change into strategic burdens from property preserving peace.

Japan’s 2026 Diplomatic Bluebook features a devoted subsection on “Responding to Information Warfare, Including Countering Disinformation” below “Strategic Communications.” Although Japanese official paperwork use the time period “information warfare,” the affect operations they describe goal the cognitive area and represent cognitive warfare in substance.  

Moreover, Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has, for the primary time, earmarked devoted synthetic intelligence funding in its fiscal 2027 funds request for “responding to cognitive warfare.” This proposed budgetary association itself signifies that the Japanese authorities is attempting to show cognitive warfare into an institutionalized nationwide endeavor from remoted actions.

Against this backdrop, VIVANT can’t be considered an remoted case of a tv sequence that occurred to go mistaken. The sequence shows the defining options of a cognitive warfare product: It turns anti-China prejudice into leisure, packages army operations as heroic missions and makes use of mass communication to translate these messages into emotional identification amongst viewers. How hostility towards China is repeatedly being circulated and amplified by industrial manufacturing, tv broadcasting and public mentions by political figures warrants nice concern. This reproducible methodology of manufacturing and dissemination that builds public assist for harmful safety insurance policies should be uncovered and condemned.

By inflaming confrontation by exaggerated exterior threats, Japan’s right-wing forces are eroding their nation’s worldwide credibility and harming the long-term pursuits of the Japanese. Allowing this harmful tendency to proceed will draw Japan away from its postwar path of peaceable improvement, exacerbate regional tensions and threaten the peace that the world holds pricey.

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Source: CGTN