DESPITE the Potsdam Declaration and Japan's pacifist constitution, which aim to stop a return to military aggression, Japan has recently been less focused on acknowledging past military crimes, changing its security policies, and pushing to revise its pacifist constitution. This shows a worrying return to militarism that could challenge the international order established after World War II.
Image/VCG
On December 7, the 84th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack, Toshio Tamogami, a former top leader of Japan's Air Self-Defense Force, shared a social media post saying that Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor was a "propaganda story" used by the US to harm Japan's reputation.
He claimed Japan had no choice but to act because it was "cornered."
This message, mainly for a Japanese audience, gained 570,000 views and 4,900 likes in just one day, according to Xinmin Weekly.
This case shows a bigger problem: because wartime militarism wasn't fully removed from Japan, far-right groups with strong military connections continue to exist.
In fact, the removal of wartime militarism in Japan wasn't complete.
Many war criminals have returned to Japan's political scene. At the same time, right-wing groups have been downplaying and glorifying Japan's wartime actions through actions like changing school textbooks.
In 1957, Nobusuke Kishi, a Class A war criminal, became Japan's Prime Minister, greatly increasing the power of right-wing forces in Japanese politics.
In 1997, some right-wing scholars formed the "New History Textbook Compilation Committee," which, with support from right-wing politicians, worked to change history textbooks to downplay and glorify Japan's wartime history.
The progress of Japan's right-wing agenda sped up during the time former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was in power.
As the grandson of Nobusuke Kishi, Abe strongly supported right-wing views.