By Zhong Sheng
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, while building momentum for revising the three national security documents later this year, claimed that the move is intended to strengthen Japan's "independence and peace, and to safeguard the lives and livelihoods of the people." To shout "peace" on one hand while pressing ahead with military expansion on the other, this stark contradiction between rhetoric and practice not only tears away the mask of Japan's so-called peaceful nation but also fully exposes the dangerous trajectory of its current strategic orientation.
Why does a "peaceful nation" regard the pacifist Constitution as a thorn in its side, eager to discard it as soon as possible?
It explicitly stipulates in the pacifist Constitution: "The Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes." "Land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained." "The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized." Since its enactment in 1947, the pacifist Constitution has constrained the military expansionist impulses of Japan. By sending a "non-war" signal to its Asian neighbors that once suffered from Japan's aggression, it has played an important role in improving Japan's relations with regional countries.
However, Japan's right-wing forces have long viewed the pacifist Constitution as an obstacle to the so-called national normalization. In recent years, Japan has accelerated the erosion of the pacifist Constitution by lifting the ban on collective self-defense, implementing the Act on the Protection of Specially Designated Secrets, enacting the new security bill, rapidly expanding military spending, developing counterstrike capabilities, and loosening restrictions on weapons exports... These actions violate the original intent of the pacifist Constitution, causing Japan's exclusively defense-oriented policy to become nominal, with the right of belligerency tacitly acknowledged. In practice, Japan is being pushed toward a new form of militarism.
Why does a "peaceful nation" seek to revise the Three Non-Nuclear Principles, laying bare its nuclear ambitions?
As the only country in the world that has ever been subjected to nuclear attacks, Japan should have been a steadfast defender of the nuclear non-proliferation regime. Yet senior Japanese officials have openly floated fallacious arguments in favor of nuclear armament, and are increasingly eager to tamper with the Three Non-Nuclear Principles. Such behavior constitutes not only a betrayal of Japan's own peace commitments but also a blatant challenge to the postwar international order and to the authority of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).
Japan is a typical nuclear threshold state , having long produced and stockpiled plutonium far in excess of what is required for civilian nuclear energy purposes. For this reason, any loosening of Japan's nuclear policy would have a profound and destabilizing impact on regional security dynamics and global strategic stability.
Why does a "peaceful nation" repeatedly stir up troubles and endanger regional peace and stability?
The Takaichi administration has frequently meddled in the Taiwan question, openly interfering in China's internal affairs and even making threats of force against China, resulting in a serious deterioration in China-Japan relations. This is not an isolated incident. In recent years, Japan's right-wing forces have continuously stoked the so-called China threat theory, deliberately fanning the flames and instigating trouble in sensitive areas like the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea. Even more dangerously, Japan has enthusiastically played the role of a pawn for outside powers, pushing for the creation of a so-called Asian version of NATO. By attempting to introduce bloc confrontations into Asia, Japan is severely undermining mutual trust between regional countries and creating major risks to regional peace and stability.
Today, Japan once again cloaks itself in the mantle of "peace", yet in practice advances policies of military expansion and war preparedness that undermine regional peace and stability. This sharp dissonance between words and deeds mirrors the insidious tactics employed by Japanese militarism before and during WWII. The purpose is to mislead the international community and create conditions and conveniences for its own strategic opportunism and adventurism.
In 1954, Japan presented the UN with the Japanese Peace Bell, bearing the inscription "Long Live Absolute World Peace". Ironically, Japan's right wing is now moving ever further down the dangerous path of new militarism. In the face of the Takaichi administration's profoundly misguided and highly dangerous strategic trajectory, the international community must remain clear-eyed, recognize the true intentions hidden beneath Japan's "peaceful nation" façade, and take resolute action to jointly safeguard regional and international peace and stability.
Editor's note: Originally published on People's Daily, this article is translated from Chinese into English and edited by the China Military Online. Zhong Sheng is a pen name often used by People's Daily to express its views on foreign policy and international affairs.
