Japan's accelerating rightward shift: Is the US prepared?

Editor's note: Gong Rong, a special commentator for CGTN, is an international affairs commentator. The article reflects the author's opinions and not necessarily those of CGTN.

The recent policy speech by Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi in the Diet, Japan's national legislature, not only epitomizes Japan's accelerating rightward political shift, rising social conservatism and spreading policy populism, but also represents a major rupture in Japan's postwar peace framework. The risk of Japan's "remilitarization" has evolved from a "potential concern" into an imminent "real threat."

As a core representative of right-wing forces, Takaichi explicitly pledged during her election campaign to amend Article 9 of the Constitution, which formally renounces war, and get legal recognition for the Self-Defense Forces (SDF). While the Constitution says Japan will not maintain a military, the SDF was created on the ground of self-defense.

With the landslide victory of Takaichi's Liberal Democratic Party and the further decline of left-wing pacifist forces, Takaichi's constitutional revision agenda is poised to enter a phase of substantive advancement.

Against this backdrop, countries around the world, including China and the United States, are closely monitoring Japan's strategic direction and policy choices. Yet, at a time when China-Japan relations remain tense due to Takaichi's remarks on China's region Taiwan, Washington's stance has been notably ambiguous.

Senior US officials appear to be trying to have it both ways in US relations with China and Japan. On one hand, US President Donald Trump has said that he understands how important the Taiwan question is to China. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio remarked at a year-end press conference that the United States is confident that it can maintain both the US-Japan alliance and constructive cooperation with China.　

On the other hand, officials from the US Department of War and the State Department, as well as the US ambassador to Japan, among others, have repeatedly voiced support for Tokyo.

This policy inconsistency and ambiguity reflect a deep contradiction in Washington's approach: It wants to use Japan to contain China, but it does not want to be dragged into a hot conflict; it acquiesces to the rearmament and military expansion of Japan's right-wing forces, yet it worries that Japan may break free from American control.

For US policymakers, three risks deserve serious consideration.

First, Japan may drag the United States into a conflict with China.

Post-World War II (WWII) instruments such as the Cairo Declaration, the Potsdam Proclamation and the Japanese Instrument of Surrender clearly defined Japan's international obligations as a defeated nation, including complete disarmament and a ban on industries capable of rearmament.

In recent years, however, Japan has steadily loosened its self-restrictions, abandoning its "exclusive defense" policy and accelerating its rearmament. US-Japan military integration has reached unprecedented depths. Through a series of moves, Tokyo has bound Washington fast to its anti-China bandwagon.

In January, Takaichi publicly claimed that "in the event of a crisis over Taiwan, Japan and the United States will jointly evacuate citizens of both countries," laying bare her intent to get US forces involved. Should Japan provoke a conflict over the Diaoyu Islands, or the Taiwan Strait, the United States would be dragged directly to the frontline of confrontation.

Furthermore, Takaichi's camp includes many advocates of nuclear armament. If Japan's "military normalization" continues unchecked, it could pave the way for nuclear development and trigger a regional proliferation crisis.

The US strategic community is deeply concerned. A study by American global policy think tank RAND indicates that US military intervention in a Taiwan Strait conflict would incur far higher costs than expected, with American bases in the Western Pacific becoming primary targets. US news publication Foreign Policy suggested that if Japan escalates its stance on China's Taiwan region, the United States should consider a "limited decoupling" from Tokyo.

Second, Japan's right-wing forces hold long-standing and growing grievances against the US.

The US treats Japan as a "natural ally to contain China." It has either deliberately or inadvertently overlooked the anti-American sentiments festering within Japan's right-wing forces. These sentiments stem from a historical trauma and more recent tensions. Japan sees the United States as the country that has hurt it most.

The US atomic bombs dropped on Japan during WWII and the longtime military occupation afterwards are "marks of shame" in the minds of Japan's right-wing forces. Many Japanese still resent the US economic suppression since the 1980s – including the 1985 forced Plaza Accord, the agreement among G5 nations (the US, Japan, then West Germany, France, and the UK) to depreciate the US dollar against the Japanese yen and German mark, aiming to reduce the massive US trade deficit. They blame this for their "three lost decades."

Today, bilateral frictions are growing over US demands on tariffs, trade agreements and cost-sharing for the US military presence in Japan.

Anti-American grievances run deep especially among the new right-wing, who are often both anti-China and anti-America. In Osaka, Kanagawa and elsewhere, right-wing groups have held annual anti-US protests for more than 30 years, condemning the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as "massacre and genocide," demanding American apologies, and chanting "Occupation forces, get out."

When Trump visited Japan in October 2025, hundreds protested in Tokyo, adding to perennial protests against US military bases across Japan.

Unlike Germany, which has sincerely repented its past, Japan's right-wing has never accepted the post-War order. Instead, it has consistently sought to break free from it by distorting history and revising the Constitution. Those constraints were tailor-made for Japan by the US itself.

Should right-wing forces gain momentum and militarism revive, these grievances could easily turn into acts of revenge. If Washington misjudges these forces, it may have nurtured a tiger that turned on its master.

Third, Japan is by no means a loyal ally.

Historically, China's influence on Japan far exceeded that of the US today. In the Tang Dynasty (618-907), Japan studied Chinese civilization extensively. Envoys from Japan to the Tang court brought back its legal codes, Confucianism, Buddhism, architecture, writing and rituals.

However, such deep cultural and trade ties and political recognition did not stop Japan from repeatedly attacking China. During the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), Japanese pirates ravaged the southeastern coast of China; in 1894, Japan launched a brutal war and seized Chinese territories; the September 18 Incident in 1931, when the Japanese destroyed part of a railway track in northeast China to manufacture a pretext to attack China and use it as a "springboard to conquer East Asia," opened the most tragic chapter in modern Chinese history.

This reveals a deep-seated opportunism and expansionist ambition within Japan's strategic culture – a belief that might is right, with betrayal and exploitation as routine tactics.

In 1941, while negotiating with the US, Japan launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, an act of undeclared war that remains the most infamous backstabbing in the history of international relations. Such strategic opportunism is still clearly visible in Japan's contemporary foreign policy.

A 2025 report by the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore has warned that if US influence in the Asia-Pacific declines, Japan is likely to adjust its strategy, even turning against the US in pursuit of regional dominance. Basing US security strategy on Japan's presumed "loyalty" is tantamount to "climbing a tree to catch fish," as the Chinese proverb goes.

Past and modern events both warn that if the US allows itself to be hijacked by the ambitions of Japan's right-wing forces, regional stability will be damaged. The US itself will stand on shaky ground.

As the late US strategist Zbigniew Brzezinski observed, "If the US and China can accommodate each other on a broad range of issues, the prospects for stability in Asia will be greatly increased." During WWII, China and the US fought side by side against fascism and militarism, striving for peace and justice. Stories of the Flying Tigers, the American volunteer pilots who fought Japanese invaders in China and then Burma with their Chinese peers, continue to be told in China today.

As major global powers, China and the U.S. share a responsibility to uphold the outcomes of the victory in WWII and prevent the resurgence of militarism. Now with a more emboldened Japanese right-wing after this election, the choice Washington makes will determine whether it becomes a guardian of peace or a catalyst for conflict.

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