Xinhua Commentary: 80 years on, the world must safeguard post-war order, WWII victory

BEIJING, Dec. 22 (Xinhua) -- Eighty years ago, the world won a great victory in the war against fascism. At the cost of tens of millions of lives, humanity crushed fascist forces, defended human civilization, and, amid the ruins of war, built the post-war international order with the United Nations at its core in the hope of preventing future calamities.

Yet as the world marks the 80th anniversary of the victory of the great war, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has chosen to move against the tide of history. Speaking before the Diet, she linked Japan's "survival-threatening situation" with a "Taiwan contingency," implying the use of force against China.

Her remarks have triggered widespread shock and concern. They represent not only a blatant intrusion into China's internal affairs, but also an open challenge to the post-war international order, sending a profoundly dangerous and deeply misguided message to the world.

For all who value peace, their conviction is unmistakable: any effort to whitewash the history of aggression, to chip away the post-war order, or to flirt with the revival of militarism is destined to face firm opposition from the international community, and is certain to fail. The will of the Chinese people to safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity is unshakable, and their resolve to uphold the hard-won victory of the World Anti-Fascist War remains unwavering.

INDISPUTABLE HISTORICAL FACTS

In the Nanjing Museum in China's eastern province of Jiangsu, an old-fashioned wall clock is displayed in a glass case, with the hour and minute hands frozen at the fateful hour of 9 o'clock. On the clock face, the inscription reads "The clock used at the Japanese surrender signing ceremony in the China Theater."

The signing ceremony was held in Nanjing on Sept. 9, 1945. Yasuji Okamura, then commander-in-chief of Japan's China Expeditionary Army, handed the official Japanese Instrument of Surrender to China. Seven days prior, on the USS Missouri, a U.S. battleship, in Tokyo Bay, then Japan's Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu had already signed Japan's surrender to the Allies, including China.

Japan's defeat was a key historic juncture that led to the building of the post-war international order, which codifies Taiwan's return to China.

Taiwan has been a part of the sacred territory of China since ancient times. Japan launched the First Sino-Japanese War in 1894 and later forced the Qing government to sign the unequal Treaty of Shimonoseki, which led to Japan's colonization of Taiwan for 50 years -- the darkest chapter in the island's history marked by countless atrocities.

In December 1943, China, the United States and the United Kingdom issued the Cairo Declaration, which stipulated that all the territories Japan has stolen from China, including Taiwan and the Penghu Islands, should be restored to China. The term "restore" signified both acknowledging historical facts and a legal claim that Taiwan originally belonged to China.

In July 1945, the three countries signed the Potsdam Proclamation, which the Soviet Union subsequently recognized. It reiterated: "The terms of the Cairo Declaration shall be carried out and Japanese sovereignty shall be limited to the islands of Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu, Shikoku and such minor islands as we determine."

This legally binding document provided an unshakable legal basis for Taiwan's return to China. Japan, in its documents of surrender, pledged to "carry out the provisions of the Potsdam Declaration in good faith."

On Oct. 25 of the same year, the Chinese government announced that it was resuming the exercise of sovereignty over Taiwan, and the ceremony to accept Japan's surrender in Taiwan Province of the China war theater of the Allied powers was held in Taipei. From that point forward, China had recovered Taiwan de jure and de facto through a host of documents with international legal effect.

In October 1971, the 26th Session of the UN General Assembly adopted, with an overwhelming majority, Resolution 2758, which decides to restore all its rights to the People's Republic of China and to recognize the representatives of its government as the only legitimate representatives of China to the United Nations.

This resolution settled once and for all the political, legal and procedural issues of China's representation in the United Nations, and it covered the whole country, including Taiwan. It also spelled out that China has one single seat in the United Nations, so there is no such thing as "two Chinas" or "one China, one Taiwan."

The one-China principle not only became international consensus but also laid the political foundation for the normalization of China-Japan relations. The 1972 Sino-Japanese Joint Statement explicitly states that "the Government of Japan recognizes the Government of the People's Republic of China as the sole legal Government of China" and that "the Government of the People's Republic of China reiterates that Taiwan is an inalienable part of the territory of the People's Republic of China. The Government of Japan fully understands and respects this stand of the Government of the People's Republic of China, and it firmly maintains its stand under Article 8 of the Potsdam Proclamation."

This position has been explicitly reaffirmed in three subsequent political documents signed by China and Japan. They constitute the solemn commitment made by the Japanese government and international obligations it must fulfill as a defeated country of World War II.

Therefore, Takaichi's provocative statements concerning Taiwan shortly after taking office marked a series of "firsts" for a Japanese leader since World War II. This marks the first time since Japan's defeat in 1945 that a Japanese leader has advocated in an official setting the notion that "a contingency for Taiwan is a contingency for Japan" and linked it to the exercise of the right of collective self-defense; the first time Japan has expressed ambitions to intervene militarily in the Taiwan question; and the first time Japan has issued a threat of force against China.

These provocative remarks constitute a grave violation of international law and the basic norms governing international relations, seriously undermine the post-war international order, and contravene the spirit of the one-China principle and the four political documents between the two countries. They have also seriously jeopardized the political foundation of China-Japan relations, and deeply offended the Chinese people.

The so-called "Treaty of San Francisco" cited by Takaichi was issued with the exclusion of important parties to the WWII, such as the People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union, in order to seek a separate peace deal with Japan. The document goes against the provision of not making a separate armistice or peace with the enemies in the Declaration by United Nations signed by 26 countries in 1942, including China, the United States, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union, and violates the UN Charter and the basic principles of international law.

Historical facts cannot be altered. Taiwan's status as an inalienable part of China is well-documented, verifiable and legally supported. It will not change over time or be weakened by political manipulation.

Japan must face up to its history of aggression, deeply reflect upon its crimes, and offer a sincere apology. Takaichi's erroneous remarks on Taiwan, framed as a response to Japan's "survival-threatening situation," along with her threats of military intervention, openly challenge the victorious outcomes of World War II, essentially seeking to deny the post-war international order and revive Japanese militarism.

SPECTER OF MILITARISM

The fact that Japan has never thoroughly purged militaristic ideology in the post-war period has led to the emergence of figures like Takaichi. Over the decades, Japan's right-wing forces have been plotting to restore their agendas.

After Japan's defeat and surrender in World War II, the nation -- having been the primary instigator of aggression -- should have undergone a thorough reckoning. The Potsdam Declaration clearly stipulated that "there must be eliminated for all time the authority and influence of those who have deceived and misled the people of Japan into embarking on world conquest."

However, with the start of the Cold War, Washington's Japan policy shifted fundamentally -- from weakening and demilitarizing Japan to cultivating and rearming it. As a result, the reckoning of Japanese militarism was left unfinished. A policy designed to expel militarists from the political, economic and public spheres, was also suspended, allowing many wartime figures to return to power.

The most emblematic case is Nobusuke Kishi. A militarist remnant who served as Minister of Commerce and Industry in Hideki Tojo's cabinet and was detained as a suspected Class-A war criminal, Kishi unexpectedly returned to politics and became Japan's prime minister in 1957. His rise marked the "revival" of militarist forces in post-war Japan. Atsushi Koketsu, emeritus professor at Yamaguchi University, observed that Japan's post-war political system was, in part, established by those who had once waged aggressive war, adding that their influence continues to this day.

As a result, Japan's right-wing forces were emboldened to grow and fester. For decades, the right-wing forces have worked to revive militarism, deny Japan's history of aggression, and break free from the constraints of the post-war international order.

Their attempts have been visible in actions such as visiting the Yasukuni Shrine. During the war, Yasukuni served as a tool of militarist indoctrination, glorifying "loyalty to the emperor." After 14 Class-A war criminals, including Hideki Tojo, were secretly enshrined there in 1978, the shrine became a symbol of glorification of Japan's war of aggression. Since then, Japanese politicians have continuously visited the shrine. Takaichi herself publicly called it "a sanctuary for peace," and has visited it almost every year in recent years.

To manipulate public education and popular opinion, Japan's right wing has long promoted historical revisionism to "whitewash" wartime crimes. They claim Japan waged war for "self-preservation and self-defense." They also attempt to smear acknowledgments of war crimes as a "masochistic view of history." In 1997, right-wing scholars founded the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform, which has worked with right-wing politicians to push for textbook revisions. Terms such as "invasion" of China were softened to "advance" or "entry," while atrocities including the Nanjing Massacre and the forced recruitment of "comfort women" were labeled "questionable."

These right-wingers also seek every opportunity to "unshackle" Japan's military. The cornerstone of Japan's pacifist constitution is Article 9, which renounces the nation's right to engage in war or to resort to military force to resolve international conflicts. For decades, this article has been a fundamental constraint on Japan's military endeavors.

However, right-wing groups have worked tirelessly to undermine this very clause. Following the end of the Gulf War, Japan dispatched minesweepers to the Gulf region, marking the first overseas deployment of the Self-Defense Forces (SDF). During the war in Afghanistan, Japan sent naval vessels to provide fuel supplies for U.S. forces, representing the first wartime overseas dispatch of the SDF. In the Iraq War, SDF personnel were deployed to Iraqi territory, the first time they were sent to a foreign land in the midst of an active conflict.

The operational scope of Japan's military forces has continued to expand, steadily hollowing out the principles of its pacifist constitution.

This trend accelerated markedly during Shinzo Abe's administration. In 2015, the Japanese government forced through a new security law allowing Japan to exercise collective self-defense when countries "closely related to Japan" come under attack. This created a legal opening for Japan's shift from defense to offense.

Now, Takaichi, a self-claimed political heir of Abe, attempts to take this already-dangerous reinterpretation and wrench it into even riskier territory for Japan and the region. Unless Japan confronts this unresolved legacy with honesty and restraint, the specter of militarism will continue to seep into its politics with consequences that extend far beyond its shores.

Takaichi's political ascent has been nurtured in the poisonous soil of historical revisionism. From questioning the Murayama Statement, which is regarded as the pinnacle of Japan's apology for its wrongdoing before and during World War II, to denying the Nanjing Massacre and glorifying militarist symbols, she has aligned herself with factions that refuse to reckon with Japan's past aggression. Even more alarmingly, Japanese media have revealed that Takaichi was once photographed with a leader of a neo-Nazi group in Japan.

For decades, Japan's right-wing politicians like Takaichi have remained stuck in a century-old worldview, unable -- or unwilling -- to move beyond the mindset that once fueled Japan's aggression. Their perceptions of China are defined not by facts or contemporary developments, but by nostalgia for imperialist ambitions, denial of wartime atrocities, and disregard for the solemn commitments Japan made when normalizing relations with China.

The Takaichi administration also appears eager to divert attention from domestic challenges, including minority rule, shrinking support for Takaichi's Liberal Democratic Party and dissatisfaction with governance, by staging a confrontational foreign policy performance.

Driven by multiple factors, Takaichi has accelerated her dangerous agenda. She has not only made reckless remarks concerning Taiwan, but also pushed for a drastic increase in defense spending, sought to revise key security documents, attempted to further relax restrictions on arms exports, hinted at developing nuclear-powered submarines, and even broached revising Japan's three non-nuclear principles.

In the face of clear historical and legal facts, Takaichi has neither acknowledged her errors nor withdrawn her fallacies, but intensified them instead. This fully demonstrates that her remarks on Taiwan were by no means a momentary slip, but a deliberate exposure of her political intentions. Some insightful voices in Japan have noted that Takaichi is laboring under at least two fatal misjudgments.

First, she has misjudged the international landscape. An editorial in the Asahi Shimbun sharply pointed out that at a time when the United States is seeking to stabilize its relations with China, Takaichi's remarks "lack a broad perspective," shaking the foundation of Japanese diplomacy. Other commentators noted that Takaichi was trying to tie the United States to her risky agenda and make Washington "foot the bill," which is nothing more than a dangerous political gamble.

Second, she has misjudged China's resolve. The Taiwan question is at the core of China's core interests and the red line that must not be crossed. By challenging China's core interests, she is certain to face a firm and resolute response from the Chinese side.

UNATONED WAR CRIMES

China's strong reaction comes as no surprise. The rhetoric of "survival-threatening crisis" is all too familiar to the Chinese people. Japanese imperialist aggressors used similar pretext to launch a 14-year-long war of aggression against China. In 1931, Japanese militarists, by claiming that "Manchuria and Mongolia are Japan's lifeline," staged the September 18 Incident to occupy Northeast China. In 1937, they repeated the tactic with the July 7 Incident, launching a full-scale war of aggression against China.

Recent remarks by Takaichi bear an alarming resemblance to the rhetoric used by Japan's military establishment before World War II. Back then, the claim that "Manchuria and Mongolia are Japan's lifeline" was used as a pretext for aggression by Tokyo. Today, the rhetoric of "a Taiwan contingency is a Japan contingency" attempts to pull China's Taiwan into Japan's so-called "security perimeter." Such dangerous moves reek of militarism.

By downplaying Japan's wartime aggression while amplifying the impact of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the country's right-wing forces attempt to recast themselves from perpetrators into victims.

The International Military Tribunal for the Far East made it clear long ago: Japan initiated crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity. As Telford Taylor, a key prosecutor at the International War Crimes Tribunal at Nuremberg, stated, the atomic bombings ended a war for which Japan's government bore direct responsibility.

However, the right-wing groups in Japan still try to sell a lie that the country was trying to "liberate Asia" and build a "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere." History shows that their "co-prosperity" means mass killings, plunder, forced labor and cultural looting. In China alone, 35 million Chinese soldiers and civilians were killed or injured in the war, not to mention countless cities and towns reduced to rubbles and tens of millions more displaced during the Japanese aggression.

By trying to dodge its war crimes, Japan is evading obligations clearly defined under international law. Whether it be Abe's claim that the Japanese "can no longer bear the fate of continuing to apologize" or Takaichi's intensified push to break away from the post-war international order, these Japanese politicians are struggling to evade historical responsibility.

After World War II, German leaders have taken concrete steps to compensate victims and educate future generations about Germany's wartime past. As former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder noted, confronting history with prudence and self-reflection wins respect.

On December 1, the German government announced it would build a memorial to Polish victims of Nazi rule. During recent talks with visiting Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk in Berlin, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz reiterated that the memory of World War II is not a closed chapter but an ongoing responsibility.

"The past never ends," said Merz, noting that remembering and coming to terms with history "will never be complete," and Germany stands by its historical responsibility.

History shows that denying or whitewashing aggression will cast a tremendous negative effect on a country's future. How can a nation that refuses to acknowledge its history ever gain the trust or respect of the international community?

CHINA'S COMMITMENT TO PEACE AND JUSTICE

Clearly, a Japan that refuses to truly reflect on its past while accelerating military expansion risks again becoming a source of regional volatility. The regressive posture of Takaichi has already provoked strong criticism from both inside and beyond the country.

In Japan, Takaichi's abandonment of the nation's postwar commitment to peace and her disruption of the social consensus have heightened public concern that the country may once again repeat past mistakes and be drawn into the flames of war. Several former prime ministers have openly criticized her for overstepping boundaries, while multiple lawmakers and civic groups have questioned her qualifications to serve as prime minister. Scholars and media outlets have warned that her reckless actions risk isolating Japan diplomatically and damaging its economy.

At the regional level, the dangerous moves of the Takaichi administration have undermined the postwar international order that has long safeguarded lasting peace and development in the Asia-Pacific. Countries including Russia, South Korea and Myanmar have voiced criticism.

On the global stage, Takaichi's remarks linking a "survival-threatening situation" for Japan to the Taiwan question have once again stirred the international community's painful memories of militarism. As noted by Australian Citizens Party's National Chairman Robert Barwick, Takaichi's remarks undermine "both Japan's security, and the security of the entire region."

The world today bears little resemblance to that of the past, and China today is no longer what it used to be a century ago.

The Chinese people have always cherished peace and remain committed to striving for peaceful reunification. However, on major issues concerning national sovereignty and territorial integrity, China will never yield or compromise. Any attempt to interfere in China's internal affairs or obstruct its national reunification will be met with decisive countermeasures.

Eighty years ago, faced with Japanese militarism, the Chinese people fought for national survival, national rejuvenation and the cause of human justice. Today, China is even more capable and more determined to safeguard the hard-won peace.

Peace and development are the prevailing trends of the time and the shared aspiration of all peoples. As a founding member of the United Nations and a permanent member of the UN Security Council, China will firmly stand on the right side of history. Together with all nations and peoples committed to peace, China will safeguard the postwar international order, defend the victory of World War II, and ensure that the banner of peace and justice continues to fly high. ■