Translated by Claude, edited by Sinocism.com

Recognizing the Concrete Threat of Japan's "New Militarism"

认清日本"新型军国主义"现实威胁

Source: Qiushi (2026/11) | Author: Qing Yuan 青 原

Eighty years ago, on May 3, 1946, the International Military Tribunal for the Far East opened, where Chinese Judge Mei Ru'ao, Prosecutor Xiang Zhejun, and others, through arduous struggle, used iron-clad evidence to substantiate the crimes of the Japanese war criminals and nail them to the pillory of history. Eight years later, in 1954, facing the reality that the United States, through the US-Japan Security Treaty, had molded Japan into an "anti-Communist forward outpost of the East" and the "arsenal of the Far East," Mei Ru'ao wrote the article "The New Stage of Japan's Remilitarization," issuing a clear warning: Japan's remilitarization is a serious threat to peace in Asia and peace in the world. Eighty years on, Japan has charged even further along the direction Mei feared. Since Japanese Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae made erroneous remarks regarding Taiwan in November 2025, Japan's national strategy has been accelerating its transformation toward militarization, with a frequency of action, gravity of nature, and dangerousness of direction far exceeding any period in the postwar era; Japan's "new militarism" has shifted from dangerous nascent shoots into a concrete threat. Regional countries and the international community must remain on high alert and resolutely curb its spread into full force.

80年前的1946年5月3日，远东国际军事法庭开庭，中国法官梅汝璞、检察官向哲濬等人经过艰苦较量，用铁证坐实了日本战犯的罪行，将其钉上历史耻辱柱。8年之后的1954年，面对美国通过《美日安保条约》将日本打造成"反共东方前哨阵地"与"远东兵工厂"的现实，梅汝璞即写作《日本重新军国主义化的新阶段》一文，明确警示：日本重新军国主义化是对亚洲和平和世界和平的严重威胁。80年后的今天，日本更是沿着梅汝璞担忧的这一方向狂奔。自2025年11月日本首相高市早苗发表涉台错误言论以来，日本国家战略加速向军事化方向转型，其动作之频、性质之重、走向之危险，远超战后任何一个时期，日本"新型军国主义"已从危险苗头变成现实威胁。地区国家和国际社会必须高度警惕，坚决遏制其蔓延成势。

I

一

Japan's "new militarism" is not something entirely different from traditional militarism, but rather an adaptive variant of traditional militarism under contemporary political and social conditions. Its spiritual core — taking military worship as its center and external expansion as its direction — has not only persisted unchanged in contemporary Japan, but has indeed returned in a more concealed and deceptive form, with potential harm even greater than traditional militarism.

日本"新型军国主义"并非完全有别于传统军国主义的新事物，而是传统军国主义在当代政治社会条件下的适应性变体。其以军事崇拜为核心、以对外扩张为指向的精神内核在当代日本不仅延续未变，反而以更具隐蔽性、迷惑性的方式卷土重来，其潜在危害较传统军国主义更甚。

After WWII victory, the international community used the UN Charter, the Tokyo Trials, and the Peace Constitution as the foundation for the demilitarization remaking of Japan, whose fundamental purpose was to thoroughly root out militarism from the institutional and spiritual levels. For a considerable period after the war, under pressure from the international community and the constraints of the domestic peace movement, the voice of Japanese militarism dared not openly come forward. From the 1980s onward, with Japanese political figures publicly visiting Yasukuni Shrine and history textbooks approved by the Ministry of Education repeatedly downplaying and distorting wartime crimes of aggression, historical revisionism moved gradually from dark to light, from margin to mainstream. Entering the new century, denials of the Nanjing Massacre, beautifications of colonial rule, and rhetoric reversing verdicts on war criminals have become ever more unbridled in Japanese politics and public discourse, and the militarist historical view suppressed by the postwar order has regained space to enter the halls of power. As the historical view continues to loosen, open worship of the military and restlessness for external expansion have followed, gradually emerging. In personnel arrangements and institutions, the social status of the Self-Defense Forces has been elevated to unprecedented levels: retired senior officers have been appointed to important posts such as Prime Ministerial Security Adviser, Yasukuni Shrine Chief Priest, and senior consultant to military-industrial enterprises, allowing "military thinking" to penetrate deeply into politics, religion, and economics. In industrial policy, the defense industry has been designated a national strategic industry, weapons exports — long a postwar forbidden zone — have become a direction the government strives to promote, the defense budget has grown for 14 consecutive years, and the orientation of tilting national resources toward the military domain has become ever more open. In political ritual, Yasukuni Shrine is both a spiritual tool by which Japanese militarism waged wars of aggression abroad and a political device by which contemporary right-wing forces indoctrinate the population with the "Imperial-Country historical view"; under the careful operation of the ruling clique, visits — from Diet members to cabinet ministers to the Prime Minister himself — have been transformed from supposedly personal belief into a political required course. In institutional symbols, the Japanese government has recently planned to restore military rank titles such as "general" and "colonel" from the old imperial era, aiming to reconnect the "Imperial Army" spiritual residues severed by the postwar order, and to re-establish the legitimacy of military worship through ritualization. It can be said that Japanese right-wing ruling forces' veneration of military expansion has already penetrated to the bone, even giving rise to extreme incidents such as an active-duty Self-Defense Force officer forcibly breaking into the Chinese Embassy in Japan armed with a knife.

二战胜利后，国际社会以《联合国宪章》、东京审判和和平宪法为基础，对日本进行非军事化改造，根本目的就是从制度上和精神上彻底铲除军国主义。战后相当长一段时间内，迫于国际社会的压力和国内和平思潮的约束，日本军国主义的声音尚不敢公然出场。从20世纪80年代起，随着日本政界要人公开参拜靖国神社、文部省审定的历史教科书一再淡化和歪曲侵略罪行，历史修正主义逐步由暗转明、由边缘走向主流。进入新世纪，否认南京大屠杀、美化殖民统治、为战犯翻案的言论在日本政界和舆论场愈发肆无忌惮，被战后体制压制的军国主义历史观，重新获得登堂入室的空间。历史观持续松动，对军事的公开崇拜与对外扩张的躁动便随之抬头、逐步显现。在人事安排与制度上，自卫队社会地位空前提升，退役高级将领纷纷出任首相安保辅佐官、靖国神社宫司、军工企业高级顾问等要职，使"军人思维"向政治、宗教、经济各领域深度渗透。在产业政策上，防卫产业被列为国家战略产业，武器出口由战后长期禁区变为政府着力推动的方向，防卫预算连续14年增长，国家资源向军事领域倾斜的取向愈发公开化。在政治仪式上，靖国神社既是日本军国主义对外发动侵略战争的精神工具，也是当代右翼势力向民众灌输"皇国史观"的政治装置，在执政集团的精心运作下，从国会议员到内阁阁僚再到首相本人，参拜行为已由所谓个人信仰嬕变为政治必修课。在制度符号上，日本政府近期计划恢复"大将"、"大佐"等旧帝国时期的军衔称谓，旨在重新接续被战后体制切断的"皇军"精神残余，以仪式化方式为军事崇拜重新确立合法性。可以说，日本右翼当政势力对军事扩张的推崇已深入骨髓，甚至催生出自卫队现役官员携刀强闯中国驻日使馆这样的极端事件。

At present, "new militarism" has already penetrated the military, diplomatic, and cultural layers of Japan, profoundly changing the development trajectory of Japanese politics and society. Its new features stand out particularly at the levels of governing architecture, expansion pathway, and discourse system.

当前，"新型军国主义"已经渗入日本军事、外交和文化等层面，深刻改变着日本政治与社会的发展走向。其新特征，在统治架构、扩张路径、话语体系等层面尤为突出。

The governing architecture is more cliquish and proceduralized. Traditional militarism was an "Emperor–Military Department–zaibatsu" trinity governing architecture, in which the Military Department, leaning on the independence of the supreme command and the active-duty military officer system for ministers, was bound together with the zaibatsu, directly holding the cabinet hostage and manipulating national policy. "new militarism" has evolved the governing architecture into a "right-wing politicians–security bureaucrats–military-industrial capital" combination. Within this, the right-wing political clique dominates the central political decision-making, security bureaucrats control the professional channels of policy formulation and implementation, and military-industrial capital provides industrial momentum and interest binding. The three are interlocked, forming a policy-and-interest closed loop, and pushing forward the agenda of military expansion and constitutional revision via so-called "legalized" and "democratized" pathways such as parliamentary legislation, cabinet resolutions, and security documents. The ruling will of militarism has thereby completed a fundamental shift from relying on military hegemony to running through legitimate procedures.

统治架构更加集团化、程序化。传统军国主义是"天皇—军部—财阀"三位一体的统治架构，军部以统帅权独立和军部大臣现役武官制为依托，与财阀形成捆绑，直接挟制内阁、操纵国策。"新型军国主义"则将统治架构演变为"右翼政治家—安保官僚—军工资本"的组合。其中，右翼政治家集团主导政治决策中枢，安保官僚把持政策制定实施的专业渠道，军工资本则提供产业动力与利益绑定。三者相互勾连，形成政策与利益闭环，并通过议会立法、内阁决议、安保文件等所谓"合法化"、"民主化"路径推进扩军修宪议程。军国主义的统治意志由此完成了从依托军事强权向合法程序运行的根本转向。

The expansion pathway takes on a dependent and circuitous form. Traditional militarism relied on unilateral force for external conquest, openly invading neighboring countries under banners such as the "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere," manifesting as a path of strength-projection abroad and autonomous expansion. Constrained by the postwar order, "new militarism" lacks the capacity to retrace this old unilateral-expansion road, and has instead chosen a dependent-style expansion pathway: relying on the US-Japan alliance system, gradually advancing rearmament, external intervention, and regional expansion under the umbrella of US strategy. On the surface this pathway is "America leads, Japan follows"; in essence, Japan uses the alliance as a lever, conversely pulling and entangling the United States into supporting its regional ambitions — an alliance-ized version of the logic by which weaker powers depend on stronger ones to suppress neighbors. Dependent-style expansion both evades the direct constraints of the postwar order and gives Japan's military adventures a great-power alliance to lean on; the level of danger must not be underestimated.

扩张路径呈现依附化、迂回化。传统军国主义凭借单边武力对外征服，以"大东亚共荣"等旗号公开侵略邻国，呈现为强权对外、自主扩张的路径。受制于战后体制，"新型军国主义"无力重走单边扩张的老路，转而选择了一条依附式扩张路径，即依托美日同盟体系，在美国战略保护伞之下逐步推进重新武装、对外干预和地区扩张。这一路径表面上是"美主日从"，实质上日本以同盟为杠杆，反向拉拢裹挟美国为其地区野心撑腰，是依附强国打压邻国逻辑的同盟化版本。依附式扩张既规避了战后秩序的直接约束，又让日本的军事冒险有了大国同盟可供依仗，其危险程度不容低估。

The discourse system is more deceptive and misleading. Traditional militarism flew banners of expansion such as "Hakkō Ichiu" (meaning "conquering the eight directions and uniting them under one roof") and "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity," with the essence of aggression patently obvious. "new militarism" instead packages itself in contemporary discourse such as "democracy and freedom," "rules-based order," and "state normalization," using "developing counterstrike capability" to disguise offensive intent and "exercising the right of collective self-defense" to beautify the dispatch of troops abroad, allowing Japan's military strategy — under a cloak of legality and compliance — to shift from "exclusively defensive defense" to "active offense." More worthy of alarm is that Japanese right-wing forces are habituated to fabricating pretexts for military breakthroughs through so-called "existential crisis" narratives. Historically, from the "Manchurian-Mongolian Crisis" to "national survival," all have followed the narrative template of "first manufacture the crisis, then use the crisis to push expansion"; today this technique has been resurrected under the packaging of discourse such as "realizing our own security guarantees" and "maintaining a rules-based international order."