BEIJING, May 9 (Xinhua) — A Chinese protection ministry spokesperson on Saturday urged the Japanese facet to display the braveness to withstand historical past and take actual actions to atone for Japan’s crimes, slamming Tokyo’s renewed push for constitutional revision and army growth.
“The call of our times is for peace and cooperation rather than war and confrontation,” mentioned Jiang Bin, a spokesperson for the Ministry of National Defense, at a press briefing.
Jiang made the remarks in response to a query concerning Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s latest visits to Australia and Vietnam, throughout which she touted a so-called up to date imaginative and prescient of “a free and open Indo-Pacific” and clamored that Japan’s post-war structure, drafted throughout U.S. army occupation, ought to be periodically up to date to satisfy the calls for of the instances.
Under the pretexts of the so-called “free and open Indo-Pacific” and “security cooperation,” governing authorities in Japan are instigating bloc confrontation and constructing “small circles,” Jiang mentioned. “This undermines the strategic security and interests of other countries, and serves as an excuse for Japan to break free from the restrictions on its military development, which we firmly oppose.”
May 3, 2026 marks the eightieth anniversary of the graduation of the Tokyo Trials. Over the previous eight many years, right-wing forces in Japan have spared no effort in downplaying and defying the solemn ruling of the Tokyo Trials that embodies human conscience and historic justice, distorting and denying Japanese militarists’ crimes of aggression well-documented in black and white, Jiang famous.
Class-A conflict criminals, responsible of heinous atrocities, have been glorified as “heroes” and honored on the Yasukuni Shrine, he mentioned. Post-war Japanese governments did promise to uphold the pacifist structure and pursue the trail of a peaceable nation. Later on, they began to pay lip service and take few actions to again up such promise.
“The Sanae Takaichi administration, however, openly pushes for amending Japan’s constitution,” Jiang mentioned. “This shows that the Japanese right-wing forces are shedding their pretence, and shifting from covert military buildup to overt war preparation, making Japan’s ‘neo-militarism’ a growing and more prominent threat to regional peace.”
“We urge the Japanese governing authorities to stop their hypocritical self-glorification and rein in their dangerous ambition of military expansion and war preparation, demonstrate the courage to face up to history, and take real actions to atone for Japan’s crimes, so as to earn the trust of its Asian neighbors and the international community,” Jiang mentioned.