Tokyo must not forget lessons of Pacific War
About 80 years ago, Japan was Asia's strongest military power, fighting one-on-one against America globally. Since their defeat in 1945, Japanese right-wing groups have had one goal: regaining their country's former military and political influence, beginning with the Asia-Pacific region.
On Friday, Tokyo announced its biggest military buildup since WWII with a $320 billion plan. "It is my answer to the various security challenges that we face," Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said. "Japan and its people are now at a turning point in history."
Koreans wary of Japan's resurgence might be forgiven for thinking that their former colonizer is also at a turning point ― shifting from a defensive stance to an offensive one, with a newly-strengthened military.
A separate document on strategies and tactics allows Japan to attack enemy bases if they threaten Japan and "its allies."
Tokyo calls it a "counterattack capability," a relaxed, veiled expression. However, it also means the ability to make preemptive strikes. This is because Japan can do so if it judges hostile moves are imminent. There are no objective criteria or timing for such attacks. In other words, the Self-Defense Forces can hit Pyongyang first if it thinks North Korea's attacks on U.S. bases in Asia are looming.
Of course, Tokyo's biggest potential enemy is not Pyongyang but Beijing.
However, could that justify or explain why President Yoon Suk-yeol agreed on "real-time sharing of missile intelligence" with the U.S. and Japan in his meetings with Joe Biden and Kishida in Phnom Penh last month? In a worst-case scenario, Japan can carry out a missile attack on North Korea using information provided by South Korea. In a recent interview with Reuters, Yoon also asked whether Tokyo should do nothing while the North's missiles fly over the Japanese archipelago. It was a de facto recognition of Japan's military buildup.
Japanese political leaders aim to form a tight alliance with the U.S. to compete with the China-Russia alliance in the new Cold War. North Korea, which describes the U.S. as its archenemy, may have no choice but to join the Sino-Russo bloc. However, should South Korea take a similar course as the subordinate regional partner of its former colonizer? Before it gets too late, Seoul must prevent the possibility of becoming sidelined by the unilateral decisions of Washington and Tokyo.
A better way is to take the hands of Japan's more conscientious, pacifist groups and like-minded forces worldwide.
The pacifists in Japan made their opposition clear to the military buildup plan, claiming it does not necessarily lead to a security guarantee. What's needed to prevent war is dialogue and cooperation, a civic group said, adding that Tokyo must not "break its promise not to start another war of aggression." A Japanese professor pointed out that Tokyo's attempt to strengthen ties with "middle powers," like South Korea, Australia, and European countries, citing the Chinese threat, will get nowhere. He added that cooperation with middle powers should not aim to respond to threats but solidify regional orders.
There are many signs that Japanese right-wing groups have forgotten the lessons from their militaristic past. Tokyo still denies recruiting Korean workers for forced labor and continues to enhance its claim to Dokdo, another bitter legacy of the colonial era, as Koreans see it.
Still, the Yoon administration has kept its diplomacy with Tokyo low key, scuttling a private debate on compensating former forced laborers and canceling the state human rights agency's awarding of a former sex slave.
Right-leaning Japanese leaders have not only forgotten the lessons of World War II, but are also bent on reviving some version of the tragic past.
Sadly, some leaders here seem no less forgetful or ignorant of history. True, North Korea poses an immediate security threat. However, Japanese militarism sowed the seeds of misfortune on the Korean Peninsula by colonizing it, which was then divided by the Americans and Russians.
When will Koreans be able to have leaders with a deeper historical insight?
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