On Tuesday, Japan’s parliament installed Sanae Takaichi, the new leader of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), as prime minister. The elevation to power of this ultra-nationalist, pro-war figure comes with a new ruling coalition that is rapidly pushing establishment politics even further to the right.
One of the goals of the Japanese far-right is to amend the constitution to give themselves an army capable of offensive wars.
Sure, why not, it’s not like they have a giant next door with a understandable huge thirst for
revanchismrevenge*You are using the term “revanchism” incorrectly.
Revanchism refers to seeking a revision or reversal of the outcome of a defeat in a war, such as through regaining lost territories or undoing a humiliation. Japan was the defeated power in the war with China. Japan is the revanchist power in this situation. China has no reason for revanchism, they were the winners of WWII and, at least formally, got all their territories back.
Ok, but the war crimes scoreboard is on the side of Japan
China has no intention or desire to try to equalize that score. All they want is an apology and recognition of the crimes.
On a realistic note, is there an official redline from China about Japan’s offensive military capabilities?
Japan “got away” with assisting the Great Satan in Iraq and Afghanistan, they seem to want to chain themselves to the US in this second cold war, plus the mentioned “we did nothing wrong” official policy, plus the “one-screwdriver-turn” away from having nukes.
No. And the US wouldn’t take such a line seriously as it’s unlikely China would either.
In the past crossing China’s red lines meant being snubbed for diplomatic visits, some not picking up phone calls, reduced counter-narcotics coordination, and angry military drills around Taiwan and absolutely nothing else of serious consequence. The trade war has China tit for tatting the US with export restrictions but that’s not as a result of crossing red lines on geopolitical issues that displease China but as a direct response to economic attacks. The US has a history of crossing China’s red lines on Taiwan in particular. China draws one, US steps over it, China gets angry, acts coldly towards the US and eventually after a few years goes back to normal after some gesture move from the US on unrelated matters or some formal statement with no teeth.
Fact is Japan is a US vassal, a directly occupied vassal and has been since WW2 and a key part of US power projection in Asia. If it’s in the US interests to have Japan re-arm and say “we are doing this to mass murder Chinese people soon” then that’s what will happen. China may express displeasure by slapping on trade sanctions on Japan and allow and encourage protests in China against Japan and so on but they’re not going to strike Japan first because militarily striking Japan would be tantamount to militarily striking the US as they have a joint defense agreement. (Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Mutual_Cooperation_and_Security_between_the_United_States_and_Japan )
At this time in China’s long-game plans they have no interest in engaging in warfare with the US.
I don’t think they gonna get it unless using the USSR method
They’re gonna get nuked again?
This is one of the positions among Japan’s New Left after WWII and why they gained popularity. Japan’s far-right government started a war they couldn’t win, predicated on the enslavement and colonization of their neighbors, only to result in the country’s destruction and getting two nuclear bombs dropped on them. They gained nothing out of the war except occupation by a foreign army from the other side of the world and millions of dead bodies. Reactionary politics is not good for Japan seeing as how it led to Hiroshima and Nagasaki with many more cities firebombed.
The right-wing chuds see WWII as something they should try again, but this time they’ll totally win, despite the countries they invaded last time having better armies and military technology that has outpaced Japan. Surely their small-ass island nation with a declining population can take on China (which is not in the middle of a civil war and has nukes), both halves of Korea (which are at a stalemate and have done nothing but build up their militaries for the last 50 years), the Philippines (which is not in ruins from fighting two superpowers in a row), and Vietnam (who have done nothing but win wars since they won the last war they fought against Japan).