The Chinese Foreign Ministry continues to express great alarm at Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaishi’s proposals to militarize Japan, reminiscent of its 1930’s military build-up that led Japan to not only invade China, but to invade or occupy all or part of over 20 other countries and territories, during its aggressive expansion culminating in World War II (roughly 1931–1945).
On April 28, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian stated, in response to a question, that “Sanae Takaichi’s administration recently has been pushing to rebuild Japan’s war machine, and now calls for ‘preparing for a long war.’ Having once launched the war of aggression several decades ago, Japan now makes scare-mongering remarks. Is Japan’s militarist past returning? Is Japan speeding down the path of ‘remilitarization?’ Could Japan once again become the bane of East Asia?”
He stressed, “Given the history of aggression and to prevent the revival of Japanese militarism, the Cairo Declaration, the Potsdam Proclamation, the Japanese Instrument of Surrender and a series of documents with full legal effect under international law explicitly require Japan to be ‘completely disarmed’ and not to maintain industries that ‘would enable it to re-arm for war.’ Yet, Japan’s latest departure from the ‘exclusively defense-oriented’ principle and declaration to ‘prepare for a long war’ point to an accelerated shift onto a much more dangerous, adventurist and provocative path in the military and security fields…. This year marks the 80th anniversary of the beginning of the Tokyo trials [of Japanese war criminals]. Clearly, the Takaichi administration has no intention of honoring the occasion by reflecting on Japan’s militarist past, as they get into gear rearming Japan.”
In response to a related question about the fact that on April 28 members of Takaichi’s Liberal Democratic Party, and members of the recently formed right-wing Sanseito Party lawmakers visited the Yasukuni war shrine — a Shinto shrine that commemorates many Japanese war dead, but provocatively houses Japanese Class A World War II war criminals—spokesman Lin Jian noted, “The so-called Yasukuni shrine is a spiritual tool and symbol of Japanese militarists’ war of aggression. It is in fact a shrine for war criminals. Japan’s negative moves concerning the war shrine constitute a blatant and grave affront to historic justice and human conscience in defiance of the victory of WWII and the postwar international order. China strongly deplores and condemns it.”
