by Shao Xia
There is one form of political hypocrisy that is even more corrosive than open aggression: the deliberate manipulation of memory to disguise guilt as innocence.
Post-war Japan, particularly its right-wing political populists, has elevated this hypocrisy into governing tactics.
Germany confronted its crimes through repentance. Japan chose denial, whitewashing, and silence. This difference is not cultural -- it is political and moral.
That "amnesia" is now resurfacing in a dangerous form. Recent remarks by Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, portraying a so-called "Taiwan contingency" as a "survival-threatening situation" for Japan, were not a slip of the tongue. They were a calculated provocation. By framing China's internal affairs as a justification for Japanese military intervention, Tokyo crossed a red line established by historical facts, international law, and the post-war order.
China's firm response was not an overreaction, but historically necessary. China had no choice but to speak louder, clearer, and more forcefully -- so that these crimes are neither diluted nor denied. Here are the five major crimes of Japan's right-wing forces and militarism.
HABITUAL FABRICATION
Japanese militarism has always relied on a single rhetorical weapon: fabrication.
In 1894, Japan launched a surprise attack on Chinese troops on the pretext that the Qing Court threatened its interests in Korea. In 1931, Manchuria was declared Japan's "lifeline" -- an excuse swiftly followed by the occupation of Northeast China. In 1937, Japan alleged that the "China situation" threatened its survival and initiated a full-scale invasion of China. In 1941, U.S. sanctions were framed by Japan as strangulation, paving the way for the Pearl Harbor attack. Every so-called "survival-threatening situation," though none was real, preceded an aggression.
Today's "Taiwan contingency" narrative is a recycled script -- an old lie in modern packaging. To pretend otherwise is an insult to history.
SABOTAGE AGAINST CHINA'S SOVEREIGNTY, TERRITORIAL INTEGRITY
Japan's crimes against China are not isolated episodes; they form a continuous strategy of interference.
The Treaty of Shimonoseki forcibly severed Taiwan from China and extorted 200 million taels of silver, bleeding China at its weakest moment.
Japan then systematically blocked China's recovery: the Twenty-One Demands, the seizure of Qingdao after World War I, the Jinan Massacre during China's reunification, the creation of the puppet state of Manchukuo, the promotion of "North China autonomy," and ultimately a full-scale war of aggression.
The Nanjing Massacre was not an aberration. It was the appalling manifestation of a militarist ideology that views Chinese lives as expendable.
Such relentless imperialist onslaught against China fully exposes a chilling calculus of conquest.
INGRATITUDE ELEVATED TO HOSTILITY
Post-war China exercised restraint as it chose reconciliation over vengeance. Some in Japan responded not with gratitude, but with resentment.
Today, nearly every iteration of the "China threat" theory bears the imprint of Japanese right-wing strategists. Their obsession with containing China is less a matter of defense and more a psychological compulsion, rooted in the collapse of imperial superiority.
The irony is staggering. Japan's legal system, writing, calendar, architecture, philosophy and aesthetics are deeply indebted to Chinese civilization. For centuries, China shared its culture without conquest. Japan repaid kindness with killing.
A gift of civilization was repaid with the scourge of war.
UNDERMINING POST-WAR ORDER FROM WITHIN
Japan was defeated as a fascist aggressor. Its obligations were clear. The Cairo Declaration and Potsdam Proclamation stipulate that all the territories Japan had stolen from the Chinese must be restored to China. Moreover, the Charter of the United Nations denounces militarism. Japan's pacifist constitution enshrines restraint as a national commitment.
Yet because post-war accountability was incomplete, militarism survived -- at first covertly, then overtly.
Today, war criminals are worshiped at the Yasukuni Shrine, textbooks are distorted, military spending is surging, right-leaning constitutional revisions are endorsed, collective self-defense is normalized and nuclear taboos are being eroded.
These are not policy choices in isolation; they are coordinated steps, purposefully reversing the historical verdict.
WILLING PAWN IN POWER POLITICS
Rather than pursuing genuine reconciliation in East Asia, Japan has chosen strategic subordination, positioning itself as a forward outpost for containing China.
Under the pretext of the so-called "Indo-Pacific Strategy," Japan has pushed for bloc confrontation, technological decoupling and regional instability.
But the illusion of shared values cannot conceal structural inequality. Japan, far from being a rule-maker, is merely a disposable pawn in Western power politics.
WHERE WILL IT END?
A nation that turns its back on its historical crimes cannot achieve inner peace. Japan's burgeoning stagnation, pervasive anxiety and rising political extremism are not accidental -- they are the psychological toll paid for its refusal to acknowledge its past wrongs.
Anthropologist Ruth Benedict once observed Japan's capacity to aestheticize violence. Today, that tendency has mutated into something more dangerous: moral numbness disguised as civility.
Japan is fully aware that it is standing at a critical crossroads. One way leads to even more denial, militarization and eventual ruin. The other requires honest reckoning, genuine repentance, and peaceful coexistence.
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
Editor's note: Shao Xia is a commentator on international affairs, writing regularly for Xinhua News, the Global Times, China Daily, CGTN, etc.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of Xinhua News Agency.
