A talk show and reflections: How should Japan confront its history?

Editor's note: Zhou Xin is an observer on international affairs, focusing on the Asia-Pacific region. The article reflects the author's opinions and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

A recent video of former Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba in a talk show has sparked heated debate. It once again lays bare how fast Japanese society is drifting to the right, and also raises a question that will not go away: More than 80 years after the end of World War II (WWII), how should Japan confront its history?

The program aired just days after Japan marked the anniversary of its WWII defeat on August 15. Ishiba recalled that 24 years earlier, while in Singapore for a defense ministers' conference, he paid a call on former Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew. Lee asked him to talk about what he knew Japan had done to Singapore during WWII.

Ishiba gave the typical answer: Japan had occupied Singapore, used it as a base for ruling Southeast Asia, and renamed it Syonan-to. Lee replied: Is that all you know? And on that basis, you want to discuss future diplomacy with Southeast Asia? Ishiba said he was deeply shaken and never forgot it.

On the show, Ishiba noted that all Japanese prime ministers starting from Shinzo Abe stopped using the word "reflection" in their August 15 addresses at the National Memorial Service for the War Dead. Was that the right thing to do? Japan has never lacked feverish voices. In the past, bashing the United States and UK was enough to win public support; today, opposing China is. The shrill voices are growing in numbers.

When Ishiba served as Japan's minister of defense, he was seen as far right. What he said over the years has not changed, yet he is now labeled far left. Why is it so hard to admit the facts? Why is reflecting on history branded a masochistic view of history? Without reflecting on history, no lessons can be learned. Over 80 years after the end of WWII, history should now be examined scientifically and objectively. If not now, when?

During WWII, Japan waged a war of aggression against China and other Asian countries, committing horrific atrocities. After occupying Singapore in 1942, the Japanese army launched the Sook Ching operation, a purge of suspected pro-British and anti-Japanese elements. Lee Kuan Yew recalled that he narrowly escaped the roundup, and those selected at random were taken to the beach and killed. In 1962, the remains of tens of thousands of victims were exhumed from mass graves in dozens of locations in Singapore.

The Japanese invaders also plundered Singapore's economy, forced local people to build military facilities and perform hard labor, and women into sexual slavery. They also forcibly imposed education and culture enslavement. They made Singapore the headquarters of Unit 9420, a biological warfare unit of the Japanese Imperial Army targeting Southeast Asia, where they developed biological weapons and conducted vivisection and other inhumane experiments on people.

Lee Kuan Yew said the horrors of the occupation were indelible, and his son Lee Hsien Loong, who later became prime minister, called the Japanese occupation the darkest period in Singapore’s history, one that cannot and should not be forgotten.

Yet Japan has never been willing to confront this history. Right-wing forces have gone even further to consistently downplay and whitewash aggression in a wanton display of historical revisionism.

In 2026, Japan's education ministry approved high school textbooks for 2027. Only one of the nine publishers used the word "aggression" for Japan's war of aggression against China, and that textbook was adopted by just 0.5% of schools. One publisher, in its publications in 2009, mentioned that during Japan’s invasion of Southeast Asia, locals were forced into harsh labor. But it changed the wording to "locals mobilized as laborers" in 2024.

In 2021, the Japanese government adopted a cabinet resolution that determined terms such as "military comfort women" and "forcibly taking away" as inappropriate. Many Japanese politicians openly visit the notorious Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, which enshrines Class-A war criminals of WWII.

Last October, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, while attending East Asia cooperation meetings in Malaysia, made a special trip to the Japanese cemetery in Kuala Lumpur where the Japanese soldiers killed in WWII are buried to lay flowers. She claimed that she had reviewed Malaysia’s history, but said nothing about the atrocities Japanese invaders committed there, drawing sharp criticism from Malaysia.

The failure and distortion of history education, together with the wrongheaded actions of right-wing politicians in power, have left the Japanese public, especially the young, with a distorted view of history. In March this year, an NHK poll asked whether WWII was a war of aggression launched by Japan against its Asian neighbors. Only 35% of respondents said yes, 16% said no, and 48% said they did not know. Ishiba’s journey from far right to far left in Japanese public opinion is a telling sign of how quickly the country's political thinking is shifting rightward.

On the eve of WWII, Japan sank into militarism amid a rising frenzy of nationalism and military rule, then embarked on aggression and expansion that wreaked havoc on Asia and on its own people. Today, the Takaichi administration is racing down the path of re-militarization: deploying long-range offensive weapons, lifting the ban on lethal weapons exports and raising defense spending for the 14th straight year, bringing forward the target of raising military spending to 2% of GDP.

The exclusively defense-oriented security policy exists in name only. The Japanese government is pushing to revise the three national security documents this year, which would further accelerate Japan’s military buildup. Senior officials have repeatedly hinted at revising the Three Non-Nuclear Principles, Japan's postwar commitment that it will not possess, not produce, and not permit the introduction of nuclear weapons into its territory. Postwar Japan had long taken pride in its pacifist constitution and presented itself as a peace-loving nation. But in April, Takaichi declared that the time for constitutional revision had come and pledged to make progress on a revision proposal by spring 2027. Asian countries have every reason to be alarmed.

History mirrors a nation's past and future. If a country forgets the crimes it committed and even denies or whitewashes aggression, how can it truly value peace? When constitutional revision, military expansion and nuclear possession dominate public debate while honest reflection is suppressed, how can one be sure it won't repeat the past? If Japan wants real international respect, it must confront its history, sincerely repent, and stop following historical revisionism and reviving militarism.

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