How Tokyo is stripping away the reassurance Japan as soon as supplied Asia

Editor’s be aware: Li Shuaiyu, a particular commentator for CGTN, is a lecturer on the School of International Relations, Beijing Foreign Studies University. The article displays the writer’s opinions and never essentially the views of CGTN.

Stop folks at random in Beijing or Seoul and ask whether or not Tokyo has ever supplied a transparent and satisfactory apology for its aggression and colonial rule in Asia. As media surveys have proven, most would say no. Japan invests closely in public diplomacy, which makes that discovering price explaining. Why do neighboring international locations that had been as soon as invaded and ravaged throughout World War II nonetheless harbor concern of Japan, even after the Japanese authorities issued an official apology just like the Murayama Declaration in 1995? The quick reply is that historic revisionism was by no means marginalized in Japanese politics or society; quite the opposite, it has typically gained assist on the highest ranges of presidency. 

There is a extra significant issue as properly, which is the topic of what follows. Japan’s latest army buildup and protection coverage reforms are hollowing out the strategic reassurance that Japan, as a wartime aggressor, prolonged to its Asian neighbors within the postwar years.

Japan’s relations with its neighbors have lengthy been a central case within the examine of reconciliation between states. As Jennifer Lind argued in Sorry States, Tokyo’s official acknowledgment of its aggression and colonial rule, and its apology for them, got here late solely after the Cold War. Before the Nineteen Eighties, the federal government barely raised the difficulty in public. Yet Japan had already normalized relations with China and the Republic of Korea and begun a rapprochement.

If an apology shouldn’t be an answer, then what can convey the strategic assurances wanted for reconciliation? Japan’s Cold War-era protection coverage supplies the reply, and it additionally explains why latest Japanese leaders, by eradicating these restraints one after the other, are undermining the pillars which have supported Japan’s relations with its Asian neighbors, posing a danger to stability within the Asia-Pacific. During the Cold War, Japan progressively constructed a set of self-imposed limits on armament. Beyond Article 9 of the peace structure, which renounces using drive, these limits had been written into Diet resolutions, cupboard interpretations and protection planning paperwork.

First, Japan’s first Defense White Paper, revealed in 1970, set out for the primary time what the Self-Defense Forces may do: Use drive solely after an armed assault; maintain no strategic offensive weapons that would threaten different states; ship no fight models overseas; and confine protection to Japanese territory. This was paired with thes authorities’s interpretation that Japan wouldn’t train the fitting of collective self-defense.

Second, on nuclear weapons, then Prime Minister Eisaku Sato introduced the Three Non-Nuclear Principles in 1967, which a House of Representatives decision confirmed in 1971.

Third, alongside the 1976 National Defense Program Outline, the Miki cupboard determined that annual protection spending shouldn’t exceed 1% of gross nationwide product (GNP) in the interim. The ceiling was formally deserted in 1987, earlier than the Cold War had ended, although precise spending stayed close to that degree for years afterward.

Fourth, Japan established the precept of civilian management over the uniformed companies, an vital postwar institutional association supposed to stop any repeat of army growth and the rise of militarism.

Japan sat on the entrance line of the Cold War and, after its financial take-off, had the sources to rearm itself. To a big diploma, it selected to not. That restraint signaled a dedication to the postwar order. So even with no full apology from the federal government at the moment, Japan’s protection coverage gave its neighbors a reputable dedication, and laid the premise for an preliminary rapprochement with China and South Korea.

Both pillars are actually giving manner on the identical time. Historical revisionism stays lively in authorities and in society, whereas Japan’s leaders take away the restraints on rearmament one after the other. Japan’s leaders are stripping away each types of strategic reassurance: the apology that was by no means absolutely made, and the defensive posture that after stood as an alternative. Together these developments are shaking the foundations of Japan’s postwar relations with its Asian neighbors. 

A protest rally in opposition to the Japanese army’s use of sexual slavery throughout the WWII is held close to the previous website of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul, Republic of Korea, August 12, 2026. /CFP

On historical past points, the acquainted provocations over textbooks and the Yasukuni Shrine are usually not the one trigger for concern. More telling is a more recent observe: treating selective apology as statecraft, utilizing it to serve international coverage targets and to blur Japan’s identification as an aggressor and a defeated energy within the Second World War.

On armament and protection coverage, Japan’s leaders have turned Cold War norms into empty phrases, clearing the way in which for growth. Collective self-defense has been unlocked. Military spending has risen rapidly. Development of strategic weapons methods has accelerated. Arms export controls have been loosened. Within the protection institution, uniformed officers have gained affect and visibility because the ministry’s civilian officers have misplaced it. On this path, it’s more and more troublesome to see the place the boundaries of Japan’s buildup will lie. When historic revisionism already shapes how neighboring international locations assess the menace Japan poses, the accelerating progress of the Self-Defense Forces turns into a key sign of an intention to vary the regional safety order. That will inevitably convey issues to Japan’s relations with its neighbors.

Taken collectively, these developments are usually not one thing China can afford to look at passively. But within the nation that was the primary to withstand Japanese aggression throughout World War II, the primary activity is to recollect its personal battle with Japan.

As one other anniversary of the victory of the Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the World Anti-Fascist War arrives, Chinese folks can go, as abnormal residents, to the Lugou Bridge at Wanping, to the Martyrs’ Shrine at Nanyue, and to Shinao Hill in Yangquan, the place we are able to pay our respects to the fallen, and allow them to know what the nation they died for has develop into. Remembering on our personal phrases, in our personal locations, is the place resistance to Japan’s historic revisionism begins.

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Source: CGTN