Sharp Words | Denying Historical Guilt Will Bring Complete Reckoning

Denying Historical Guilt Will Bring Complete Reckoning

■ Pei Yongzhen

Eighty-one years ago, on August 15, Japan announced its acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration and surrendered unconditionally. Today, Japanese right-wing politicians are incessantly distorting settled historical verdicts and attempting to break through the postwar order, while "new-type militarism (新型军国主义)" has grown into a serious menace that gravely threatens the peace and stability of the Asia-Pacific region and the world.

Using rhetorical sleight of hand to beautify acts of aggression is a despicable trick of Japanese militarism. In the first half of the twentieth century, Japanese militarist forces, under the pretext of "liberating the peoples of Asia," wrapped their ambitions in shameless lies such as the "Greater East Asia Holy War" and "co-existence and co-prosperity," and carried out savage aggression against many countries in the Asia-Pacific, committing atrocity upon atrocity.

In China, the Japanese aggressors perpetrated the Nanjing Massacre, in which more than 300,000 people perished; implemented the brutal "Three Alls" policy (三光政策); and openly conducted bacteriological and chemical warfare in violation of international law. In Southeast Asia, they carried out the Manila Massacre and the Sook Ching massacre in Singapore — approximately 100,000 Filipinos were killed within a single month, and tens of thousands of Singapore civilians were murdered. As recorded in the judgment of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, Japan carried out more than 100 large-scale massacres in Malaysia, Indonesia, Burma, Thailand, and elsewhere.

Beyond the bloody slaughter, the Japanese aggressors also engaged in the mass conscription of forced laborers and the plundering of resources. Japan organized forced labor on a massive scale during the Second World War: tens of thousands of Southeast Asian laborers and Allied prisoners of war were abused and killed during the construction of the Thailand-Burma Railway, and more than four million Chinese laborers conscripted by the Japanese military were killed or injured due to brutal conditions and extreme overwork. The Japanese military even forced women from China, the Korean Peninsula, Southeast Asia, the Netherlands, and other countries and regions to serve as "comfort women" (慰安妇). At the same time, under the banner of the "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere," Japan rampaged through Southeast Asian nations, plundering rice, petroleum, coal, tin, rubber, and other resources. The disasters that Japanese militarism inflicted upon Asia-Pacific nations are documented case by case, verifiable item by item.

Yet for the monstrous crimes it committed, Japan has never shown the slightest remorse. Japan's right-wing forces have repeatedly reversed course on historical understanding, scheming with deliberate intent to whitewash the crimes of aggression. They arbitrarily falsify history textbooks, deliberately amplify narratives of victims of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings, deny the legitimacy of the Tokyo Trials, make frequent visits to Yasukuni Shrine, and even use artificial intelligence to fabricate false historical materials. These acts not only deeply wound the feelings of the peoples of the nations that were invaded — they are also a brazen provocation against and serious undermining of the postwar international order and the just outcomes of the Tokyo Trials.

Proceeding in lockstep with the denial of guilt is Japan's headlong rush down the road of military expansion and rearmament. In recent years, Japan has dramatically increased its defense budget, lifted the ban on the exercise of collective self-defense, relaxed restrictions on the export of lethal weapons, pushed to restore the old military rank system, and right-wing politicians have even floated the argument for "independent nuclear possession." The new edition of Japan's Defense White Paper, released earlier this month, emphasizes the need to fundamentally strengthen "defense capabilities" and pursue "new-type operational methods (新型作战方式)" — plans that have long since exceeded what self-defense requires. Japan's dangerous scheme to break free from the constraints of the postwar peace framework is plain for all to see.

What must be vigilantly watched is that Japan now seeks to exploit the alliance system to break the postwar taboo on the use of military force — an intention that is extremely sinister. This year, Japan dispatched Self-Defense Forces to the Philippines to participate in the U.S.-Philippines "Balikatan" joint military exercise — the first large-scale dispatch of combat forces to join a live-action joint exercise since the Second World War, and the first time offensive missiles were fired on foreign soil. The Japanese aggressors who once incurred a blood debt in the Philippines are now, through carefully crafted packaging, attempting to turn the exercise area into a "forward position (前沿阵地)" for stirring up regional tensions. This is a grave insult and threat to the peoples of all nations that were invaded.

Today, more and more people of insight are seeing through Japan's hypocritical face with ever greater clarity. A Japan that refuses to reflect on its crimes and is accelerating its military buildup has become a major hidden danger to regional security. Indonesia this year released a new edition of its history textbooks, changing Japan's wartime "military occupation" to the more critically charged term "colonial rule"; not long ago, Singapore media produced and broadcast the documentary Uncovering Unit 731: Japan's Secret Human Experiments, restoring to view the monstrous crimes of the Japanese military and spreading historical truth.

History must not be distorted; guilt cannot be evaded. All nations and peoples who love peace must maintain the highest vigilance against the reckless actions of Japan's "new-type militarism." This year marks the eightieth anniversary of the opening of the Tokyo Trials. Only by squarely confronting its history of aggression and sincerely reflecting on and repenting for its wrongs can Japan win the trust of its neighbors through concrete actions. If Japan returns to the evil path of militarism, the Chinese people will never accept it, the international community will never permit it, and it can only end in failure — subjected to a complete and just trial and historical reckoning.