Song Zhiyong: Guard Strictly Against the Resurgence of Japanese Militarism
As soon as Japan’s new Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi [1] assumed office, she lost no time in challenging the "red line" of China-Japan relations regarding the Taiwan issue. She has actively pushed for the revision of the "Peace Constitution," the modification of Japan’s security policies and its "Three Non-Nuclear Principles," and an increase in Japan’s military spending. Takaichi’s regressive actions have not only severely deteriorated China-Japan relations but also risk leading Japan down an evil path toward eternal perdition.
The lessons of history must not be forgotten. Pre-war Japan’s path of militarism and external aggression not only brought immense catastrophe to the invaded nations and their peoples but also caused great suffering to the Japanese citizenry. Although Japanese militarism underwent a degree of liquidation after the war, it was not thorough, leaving behind a foundation for the "dead ashes to burn again." In recent years, Japanese right-wing forces have engaged in grand-scale historical revisionism, striving to overturn the historical verdicts on Japan’s wars of aggression and militarism while pursuing military expansion and war preparations. The danger of a revival of militarism is growing, which warrants our high degree of vigilance.
I.
Modern Japanese militarism took shape in the late 19th century, yet its historical origins can be traced back to antiquity. Ancient Japan possessed a martial spirit. Starting from the middle of the Heian period (9th century), as the Ritsuryō system [2] under centralized authority gradually disintegrated, the samurai began to emerge. Some came from imperial family members demoted to subject status, others from the military aristocracy, and the majority from private armed forces established by local lords or powerful clans to guard their domains. By the late Heian period, the imperial court’s power had waned. To suppress rebellions by local forces, it was forced to rely on the strength of the samurai. Regional samurai groups seized this opportunity to surge forward, demanding greater political power.
In 1192, the samurai leader Minamoto no Yoritomo assumed the title of Seii Taishōgun ("Commander-in-Chief for the Subjugation of Barbarians") and established the Kamakura Shogunate, seizing political power and inaugurating the Shogunate era of samurai class rule. Thereafter, the "military houses" (buke), whose profession was warfare and slaughter, controlled state power for over six hundred years. The Edo Shogunate, established in 1603, was Japan's last military regime. During the Shogunate era, the Japanese samurai class gradually developed and formed Bushidō (the Way of the Warrior). Bushidō, or the samurai spirit, served as the samurai's outlook on life and the world, as well as their code of feudal moral norms and conduct, encompassing their duties and responsibilities. A core tenet of Bushidō is the celebration of the martial—establishing oneself through force and venerating martial prowess, loyalty, courage, and righteousness. After the Meiji Restoration, Bushidō was transformed into the spirit and ideology of the Japanese military, becoming a vital component of modern Japanese militarism.
During the centuries of military rule, in addition to domestic warfare, Japan turned its sights toward the Korean Peninsula and China. At the end of the 16th century, Toyotomi Hideyoshi took control of Japan’s political power. He severed tributary relations and official ties with the Ming Dynasty and personally led a massive army to invade the Korean Peninsula. He claimed he would "sweep through the more than four hundred provinces of the Ming Dynasty and incorporate them into the territory of the Imperial Kingdom," fully exposing the aggressive ambitions of Japanese militarism during the feudal era. Japan’s occupation of the Korean Peninsula in the 19th century, the launch of the Russo-Japanese War in the early 20th century, and the subsequent full-scale invasion of China can all find their ideological source in Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s acts of aggression.
From the mid-Edo period onward, representatives of Japanese intellectual circles such as Hayashi Shihei, Honda Toshiaki, Satō Nobuhiro, and Yoshida Shōin proposed various ideologies and theories of external expansion. These included wild claims such as annexing "Ezo chi" [3], conquering the Korean Peninsula, occupying the Chinese mainland, and ultimately conquering the world. They advocated the theory of "Sailing Majestically Overseas" (kaigai yūhi ron) and openly proposed the external policy of "making up in Manchuria and Korea for what is lost to Europe and America." These became the important ideological and historical currents of modern Japanese militarism.
Facing the invasion of Western powers, Japanese anti-Shogunate forces launched an armed coup in 1868, overthrew the Shogunate, and established a modern Emperor-centered regime. They implemented the Meiji Restoration, making Japan the first modernized country in Asia. After the establishment of the Meiji regime, while inheriting traditional militaristic external consciousness, Japan adopted the slogans "Leave Asia, Join Europe" and "Enrich the Country, Strengthen the Military." They studied the Social Darwinist law of the "jungle" from Western colonialism and actively plotted external aggression and expansion, forming modern Japan's strategy of external aggression—the Continental Policy (Tairiku Seisaku).
II.
Modern Japanese militarism went through three stages from its formation and establishment to its development and ultimate destruction. The first stage was the formation stage, roughly from the establishment of the Meiji government in 1868 to the end of the Satsuma Rebellion in 1877 (the Meiji Restoration in a narrow sense). The second stage was the establishment of the modern Japanese militarist system, spanning from the issuance of the "Admonition to Soldiers" and the "Regulations of the General Staff Office" in 1878 to the outbreak of the First Sino-Japanese War in 1894. The third stage was the period of development and destruction, from the post-Sino-Japanese War period to Japan's defeat and surrender in 1945.
During the first stage, the Meiji government prioritized "Enrich the Country, Strengthen the Military" as the foremost of its three great national policies, vigorously developing a modern military. In 1871, the Imperial Guard was formed. In 1873, the Conscription Law was promulgated, establishing a standing army. Shortly after the formation of this new Japanese army, it began armed aggression against weaker Asian nations and regions. In 1874, it launched an invasion of Taiwan, China; in 1875, it provoked the "Ganghwa Island Incident" against Korea, forcing Korea to sign the unequal Treaty of Ganghwa in 1876. During this period, Japan established and consolidated a militarist armed force and system centered on the Emperor and began practicing external expansion.
The second stage marked the establishment of the modern Japanese militarist system. Landmark events included the 1882 issuance of the "Imperial Rescript to Soldiers and Sailors," which demanded that military personnel uphold loyalty, ritual, valor, integrity, and simplicity, swearing death-defying fealty to the Emperor. This was a deepening of the traditional Bushidō spirit and laid a solid ideological foundation for the development of Japanese militarism. In 1889, the Constitution of the Empire of Japan was promulgated, followed by the "Imperial Rescript on Education" in 1890. In 1890, Prime Minister Yamagata Aritomo proposed that "simply defending the 'line of sovereignty' is no longer sufficient to maintain national independence; we must advance to protect the 'line of interest.'" The "line of interest" theory became a major justification for Japan launching the First Sino-Japanese War and represented the latest development of the Continental Policy. By 1893, the military administration and command departments for the Army and Navy were completed, and the modern gunbu (military authorities) system took shape. Japan established a militarist system across political, military, economic, and ideological-cultural spheres. The independence of the "right of supreme command" [4] provided the institutional guarantee for the birth and development of Japanese militarism.
The third stage was the period of development and destruction. Once the militarist system was established, Japan launched the First Sino-Japanese War in 1894. Thereafter, the pace of external aggression never ceased; Japan successively launched the Russo-Japanese War, sent troops to Siberia, and invaded China’s Shandong province. Entering the 1930s, Japanese fascism merged with militarism to form fascist militarism. The outbreak of the September 18th Incident in 1931 marked a new stage of external aggression for Japanese fascist militarism. After the "February 26 Incident" [5] in 1936, fascist militarism began to effectively control state power. Japanese militarism expanded the war of aggression against China from the localized conflict in the Northeast to nearly the entirety of China, and in 1941, it launched the Pacific War in an attempt to establish a Japan-centered "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" through force. The frenzied aggression of Japanese militarism brought immense catastrophe to the peoples of various Asian nations, most notably China, where countless families and properties were destroyed by the flames of war and tens of millions were brutally murdered. Simultaneously, militarism forced the Japanese populace to drink from a bitter cup.
In the face of the frenzied aggression and inhumane war crimes of Japanese militarism, the anti-fascist allies fought together against Japan and reached a consensus to eliminate Japanese militarism and the roots of aggressive war after the conflict. On July 26, 1945, the governments of China, the United States, and Great Britain issued the Potsdam Proclamation, urging Japan’s immediate and unconditional surrender. The Proclamation stated: "There must be eliminated for all time the authority and influence of those who have deceived and misled the people of Japan into embarking on world conquest, for we insist that a new order of peace, security and justice will be impossible until irresponsible militarism is driven from the world." It further noted: "We do not intend that the Japanese shall be enslaved as a race or destroyed as a nation, but stern justice shall be meted out to all war criminals, including those who have visited cruelties upon our prisoners. The Japanese Government shall remove all obstacles to the revival and strengthening of democratic tendencies among the Japanese people. Freedom of speech, of religion, and of thought, as well as respect for the fundamental human rights shall be established." On August 15, 1945, Japan was defeated and surrendered; the "militaristic and bellicose" [6] path of Japanese militarism ended in total failure.
III.
In the early post-war period, the Allies implemented an occupation policy for Japan centered on demilitarization and democratic reforms. To eliminate the foundations of militarism and aggression, the Allies strictly held Japan accountable for its responsibility for the war of aggression. This was pursued through two primary means: first, the establishment of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East to try Japanese war criminals; second, the purging of extremist Japanese militarists and their organizations.
From May 3, 1946, to November 12, 1948, the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, established by the anti-fascist allies in Tokyo, tried 28 war criminals—including Tojo Hideki and Doihara Kenji—who bore major leadership responsibility for heinous crimes committed during World War II. They were charged with crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. After a trial lasting two and a half years, the court declared all defendants guilty on November 12, 1948. Seven of the most egregious war criminals, including Tojo Hideki, were sentenced to death by hanging, while others received life or fixed-term imprisonment. These fanatical militarists who instigated the world war and implemented wars of aggression received their due punishment.
Beyond the public trial of war criminals, the Allies carried out a "Purge of Public Officials" and a "Purge of Teaching Staff" against Japanese militarists and their political groups. The public officials targeted included politicians, civil servants, and military bureaucrats who served in Japan’s central government and other departments during the war of aggression, as well as the core members of militarist groups and related organizations that incited war or conducted war propaganda. By March 1948, a total of 5,027 militarists and ultra-nationalists had been purged and removed from public office. Additionally, many lower-ranking officials left their posts through "self-purge." The total number of public officials purged exceeded 200,000.
Simultaneous with the "Purge of Public Officials" was the "Purge of Teaching Staff" targeting militarism in the educational field. The Allies and the occupation authorities unanimously agreed that the militarization of education was the core of Japanese militarism and required a focused "cleaning." To this end, the occupation authorities purged "all professional soldiers and fanatical advocates of militarism and ultra-nationalism" from among faculty and staff. A total of 7,003 teachers and educational officials were identified as having "fanatically advocated militarism," "incited ultra-nationalism," or "propagated Shintoist ideologies of ethnic superiority" in their teaching, writing, or administration, and were subsequently removed from their positions.
Through a series of democratic reform measures—including the Tokyo Trials, the removal from public office, and the promulgation of the "Peace Constitution"—Japanese militarism was strictly investigated and criticized. Under the "Peace Constitution," Japan essentially followed a path of peaceful development, achieving post-war reconstruction and rapid economic growth to become a global economic power. Peaceful development brought Japan a level of prosperity and growth that was absent during the era of militarism.
However, the post-war democratic reforms in Japan were not thorough. Particularly due to the impact of the Cold War and the shift in U.S. policy toward Japan, Japanese militarism was not liquidated as thoroughly as it was in Germany. With the tacit consent and support of the United States, the Japanese government conducted a large-scale review and rescission of the purges. A large number of purged militarists and their supporters had their restrictions lifted and returned to the political, financial, media, and educational sectors, boosting the development of conservative politics in Japan. The Tokyo Trials ended prematurely; many Japanese war criminals were released without being re-educated, and many of them re-emerged on the Japanese political stage, some even holding the reins of political parties and state power—Nobusuke Kishi being a prime example. These politicians, carrying the toxins of militarism, used their power to aggressively overturn history’s verdict on Japan’s militaristic wars of aggression. They touted the "Greater East Asia Holy War," beautified the invasion as an "Asian ethnic liberation war," and—under the guise of "self-defense"—violated Article 9 of the Constitution (which stipulates that Japan shall not maintain an army and renounces war as a means of settling disputes) to rebuild Japan’s armed forces. In the 1970s, the spirit tablets of 14 Class-A war criminals were moved into the Yasukuni Shrine—a symbol of modern Japanese militarism—where some Prime Ministers and Diet members have competed to pay their respects without interruption. In the 1980s, the Nakasone administration explicitly proposed a "Final Settlement of Post-war Politics." In particular, the government’s manipulation of history textbook revisions to deny or weaken the introduction of militarist history has drawn strong opposition from progressive forces in Japan and the international community.
Shinzo Abe was the longest-serving Prime Minister in Japanese constitutional history. At the same time, he was the personification [7] of post-war Japan's erroneous view of history and of words and deeds that downplayed or denied responsibility for Japan's wars of aggression; he was a representative figure of historical revisionism. From an early age, Shinzo Abe was politically nurtured by his grandfather, Nobusuke Kishi, and he believed in conservatism and extreme nationalism. After entering politics, Abe’s words and deeds became even more explicit. His political creed was to revise the "Peace Constitution," break free from the post-war system, and emerge from the "shadow" of being a defeated nation, so that Japan could become a global political and military power on the foundation of being an economic power.
On historical issues, in order to shape a national image of a "Beautiful Japan," he intended to use "ex post facto law" to overturn the judgment of the post-war International Military Tribunal for the Far East regarding the nature of Japan's war of aggression, thereby denying the history of that aggression. Regardless of opposition from domestic and international society, he repeatedly visited the Yasukuni Shrine—where Class-A war criminals are enshrined—to signal his right-wing political stance and historical understanding. During his time in office, Abe exerted his full strength to promote the revision of the "Peace Constitution," plotting to make Japan a "normal country." He also pushed the Japanese Diet to pass the "New Security Legislation," which legally lifted the ban on the right to collective self-defense, paving the way for Japan to send troops overseas. Abe held the reins of power for nearly nine years, leaving behind a massive negative political legacy for Japan. Particularly on issues of historical understanding, war responsibility, constitutional revision, and military expansion, he formed an "Abe line" of historical revisionism that has long-term influence and poses a great danger.
After Sanae Takaichi rose to prominence [8], she loudly and publicly inherited the mantle of Abe’s right-wing ideology, unscrupulously challenging the international order formed after the victory of the World Anti-Fascist War, especially challenging China's red lines on the Taiwan issue. Takaichi has vigorously incited nationalism, spread the "China threat theory," plotted to break through the "Three Non-Nuclear Principles," increased military spending, and openly expanded armaments. The signs of reviving militarism are becoming increasingly apparent. This trend toward reviving militarism in Japan deserves high levels of attention and active responses from the international community. We must remain vigilant against the resurgence [9] of Japanese militarism, lest it endanger peace in East Asia and even world security, repeating the tragedies of history.