The price of denial: How militarism manufactures historical amnesia

Editor's note: Ren Yan is a special commentator on current affairs for CGTN. The article reflects the author's views and not necessarily those of CGTN.

Standing on foreign soil, the Japanese sergeant gave the order to execute a 15-year-old boy, who was begging for his life, saying his mother was waiting for him at home.

Over the following four years, the officer went on such brutal executions 157 times – civilians, children, women, no one was spared.

This is not a scene from a horror film. It is real history pieced together from the confession of Ishiwata Takeshi, the sergeant who took part in the invasion of China during World War II (WWII) and was subsequently found guilty of war crimes. But for Takeshi, the killings were no crime. He was merely following orders.

Since 1931, militarism turned millions of Japanese – ordinary men at other times – into killing machines and perpetrators of crimes against humanity. During its War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, China suffered over 35 million military and civilian casualties. Globally, WWII drew in more than 80 countries and regions, involving roughly two billion people and total casualties exceeded 100 million while economic losses surpassed $4 trillion.

History reveals a consistent pattern: Japan's militarists have repeatedly launched wars of aggression under the pretext of "survival crises" and "self-defense."

In 1931, they manufactured the Mukden Incident in northeast China, causing a dynamite explosion near railway tracks and accusing the Chinese of sabotage as a pretext to occupy the region. The claim was that "securing Manchuria," the name given to northern China, was vital to Japan's survival.

Later, Japan framed the "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere." Ostensibly a pan-Asian bloc and policy to end Western colonialism in Asia, it was actually a tool for Japanese imperial expansion, spreading war across Asia.

Similarly, Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, the U.S., in 1941, was another act of aggression that was justified as addressing an "existential threat," and ignited the Pacific War.

And recently, the so-called "survival-threatening situation" conjured up by new Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi was linked to the Taiwan question, suggesting Tokyo might treat the Taiwan question as ground for military involvement under the legislation. It was practically equivalent to declaring that "a Taiwan contingency is a Japan contingency."

Japan's decades-long colonial rule in Taiwan alone undermines its moral authority to comment on the island's future. The comment is a political gamble, stoking animosity among the Japanese over Taiwan to divert attention from pressing domestic issues. This is tantamount to kidnapping the Japanese on a vehicle of war without telling them the real price – loss of regional trust and future stability. 

Yet Japanese history education largely sidesteps Japan's past sins and emphasizes the national victimhood narratives, such as the atomic obliteration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Japanese middle school history books gloss over the Sino-Japanese War, the Nanjing Massacre in east China, where the invading Japanese army killed about 300,000 Chinese civilians and soldiers; the "comfort women" issue of the Japanese military forcing into sex slavery captured women in China, Korea and elsewhere in Asia; and brushing the horrors of Unit 731 under the carpet. 

Unit 731, staffed by medical elite from Japan's top universities, conducted monstrous "experiments" on human subjects, dismissing them as "maruta," or logs. The victims were deliberately infected with plague, anthrax, and other bacteria and subjected to vivisection while still alive.

When wars of aggression are rebranded as "military actions" and state-sponsored atrocities like biological warfare are erased, education itself becomes a tool to systematically whitewash Japan's wartime crimes.

Masataka Mori, a former professor of peace studies and an expert on Japan's biological warfare, said in Japan's current educational environment, about 80 percent of Japanese under 30 have never heard of Unit 731. Many even see Japan as a victim of WWII.

Mori deplored that "young people cannot learn this history through formal education, and its absence will lead to the tragedy repeating itself."

He himself was once dismissed for teaching the truth about Japan's war of aggression. Despite great personal risks, including death threats, he has spent the past four decades persuading Japanese war veterans to confess their atrocities on camera.

In a society that remains collectively silent on historical crimes, conscience is held hostage by social pressure. Those who confront the past and acknowledge guilt are marginalized, while those who evade it are shielded by a distorted sense of political correctness.

Confronting history is not about burdening future generations with guilt, but about preventing the repetition of tragedy. Think of the international outcry and Europe's alarm if Germany – the other actor defeated in WWII – were to justify its nuclear armament by invoking "Poland contingencies."

Historical amnesia does more than obscure the truth; it deceives a nation's own people by denying them the right to acknowledge what happened. As long as this continues, the perception gap between Japan and its Asian neighbors will widen, eroding trust and undermining the foundation of friendly relations.

This raises a sobering question for Japanese society: How far will its leaders allow short-term political gains to jeopardize Japan's future?

The world must remain vigilant against historical amnesia and the resurgence of militarism. The shadows of the past still loom, and a haunting question persists: Is Japan poised to repeat the mistakes of its militarist era?

A truthful understanding of history is not only essential for building trust and friendship with China, it is fundamental to Japan's development as a responsible nation in Asia.

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