Editor's note: Stephen Brawer, a special commentator for CGTN, is the chairman of the Belt and Road Institute in Sweden and a distinguished research fellow of the Guangdong Institute for International Strategies. The article reflects the author's opinions and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

China suffered under the brutality of Japanese militarism more than any other nation on the planet. There were over 35 million victims in China alone due to Japanese aggression during World War Ⅱ. In 1937, Japanese occupiers carried out the horrendous slaughter in Nanjing: the Nanjing Massacre of around 300,000 victims, including women, children, and other civilians. The ruling Japanese administration has never apologized for its barbarism in Nanjing. Yet Japanese aggression and expansionism did not begin in 1937. At the end of the 19th century, in 1895, Japanese forces seized the provinces of Shandong and Liaoning in China, and forced the surrender of Taiwan to Imperial Japan. Taiwan was to remain a brutalized colony of Japan until 1945.

Ironically, Japanese industrialization and technological development in the 1870s, under the Meiji Restoration, was achieved in partnership with American policies. At that time, American foreign policy was dedicated to development, especially in Asia, unlike the present American foreign policy of containment and dominance. However, as Japan achieved these excellent technological and industrial developments, instead of sharing these benefits with its neighbors in a spirit of harmony for the common good of humanity, Japan turned these technological developments into an imperial battering ram directed outward against its weaker neighbors and so-called adversaries.

This imperial arrogance and built-in self-instilled superiority have not disappeared. Therefore, Japan's current direction of remilitarization is once again showing its ugly head. Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is joining the United States and a "Global NATO" for out-of-area deployments, part of the AUKUS alliance among the UK, the US, and Australia. This new military alliance will include Japan and the Philippines, and even an "independent Taiwan," aimed at containing China.

On April 27, Takaichi convened a meeting at her residence of an expert panel with the intention to revise Japan's recently adopted national security principles known as the "Three Documents," with the aim of "advancing the fundamental reinforcement of defense capabilities, a crucial measure on the trajectory of national destiny." Takaichi's plan to enable Japan to build up advanced warfighting capabilities, including nuclear weapons, is a new chapter repeating the cultural matrix of self-imposed insanity and uncontrolled pride that has led Japan to defeat and tragedy previously. Takaichi was quoted as saying that Japan must secure combat capabilities and prepare for protracted warfare.

The fact is that Article 9 of Japan's Constitution, which came into effect in 1947, states clearly:

Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes.

In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right to belligerency of the state will not be recognized.

If the Japanese people remain passive in the face of this new militarism, it will spell their own doom. In truth, it is absolutely against Japan's real sovereign security interests to be used as a pawn in the great geopolitical game of the US, the UK, and Australia to contain China through military alliances. Japan has always been a part of Asia. Rather than allow itself to be a chess piece for Western powers' interests, it must negotiate an acceptable agreement with China and its other neighbors. This could begin by joining the Belt and Road Initiative and BRICS to advance a multipolar world order based on the sovereign interests of all nations, enabling them to develop and prosper together in harmony.

The challenge, especially for the young people of Japan, is to recognize the power of humility. Japan needs a movement to demand an official public apology by the Japanese government for the crimes that Japan committed against the international community. This would be a good beginning to help free the Japanese people from the danger and corruption of its present political leadership.

A much-needed revelation of how Anglo-American intelligence agencies protected the Japanese war criminals at the end of World War Ⅱ would also be a step in the right direction. This is a well-known fact among the Chinese and many members of the Asian community, yet it is a story that has never been told sufficiently to the Western public. This could help the people of Japan recover some of the dignity that has been robbed from them. It could also open the possibility of a new direction in China-Japan relations.

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