— An editorial of People's Daily

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has been bombarded by the international community for his wrong words and actions, but he is still incorrigibly obstinate, talking absurdities and repeating his mistakes.

Recently, Abe used various opportunities to defend his visit to the Yasukuni Shrine that honors 14 Class-A war criminals. He tried his best to stealthily substitute concepts with sheer fabrication and strained interpretation. Most ridiculously, while being interviewed in Davos, Switzerland, Abe compared China-Japan relations to the British-German ties on the eve of World War I. The intrigue of making historical illusions is intended to distract the international community's attention and confuse right and wrong.

His favorites are also bustling about. Some have denied the Nanjing Massacre, expressing doubts about the just trial of Japanese militarism by the international community. There are those who have beat the drum saying that Japan's peaceful constitution is invalid, trying to break the international order safeguarding peace after victory in the world's anti-fascist war. Others have been busy revising standards for the approval of textbooks, asking publishing houses to describe the history of invasion with ambiguous terms, and claiming the Diaoyu Islands, which have belonged to China since ancient times, as an "integral part of Japan." Still others have tried to deny the facts about "comfort women," a war crime with iron-clad evidence.

One should not be ambiguous on major issues of principle. The Japanese right-wing politicians' bungling acts are like performances by clowns occasionally happening on the great stage of history.

However, people have to take a more vigilant attitude toward them, as they are trying to falsify history, challenging human conscience and confronting justice. It is very dangerous.

Abe is wrong, but he sought foundation from pre-World War I history the way a hungry man is not choosy about his food. His so-called foundation is purely groundless and unrelated, which has exposed his ulterior motive.

People with a basic knowledge of history know that the British-German relations before World War I were of a competition between two imperialist countries for overseas colonies. China, however, is a country which had suffered from plundering, bullying and partition by great powers, and a country focuses on maintaining peace and seeking development after winning independence.

China has promised that it will never seek hegemony, and has been widely recognized as a country that advocates peace, development, cooperation and win-win situations.

No matter how it is viewed, China has no similarities with any imperialist countries. Comparing China to Germany before World War I was aimed at covering Japanese right-wing politicians' wrong acts of deviating from the peaceful path. Japan's attempt to achieve historical misconceptions was in defiance of international justice.

Abe's outright distortion of truth and blatant smearing of China using his gangster logic is proof of Japan's refusal to recognize its depraved history of imperialist aggression, expansion and colonial domination, bringing it to the spotlight once again under the scrutiny of the international community.

– In 1894, Japan waged the First Sino-Japanese War.

– In 1910, Japan forcefully annexed the Korean Peninsula.

– In 1931, Japan invaded and occupied northeast China.

– In 1937, Japan launched an all-out war against China.

– In 1941, Japan started the Pacific War.

In the face of a blood-stained list of crimes of aggression—the diabolical biochemical experiments conducted by Unit 731 of the Japanese Imperial Forces, the coercive recruitment of "comfort women," and the appalling massacres conducted by the Japanese forces, among others—the Japanese government nevertheless chose to turn a blind eye to history, worship war criminals and resort to sophistry to hide its past. Such acts will only serve to alienate Japan from international justice.

Indeed, a fallacy can never become truth. Abe's visit to the Yasukuni Shrine also harms U.S. people's feelings. Many in the United States have pointed out that the so-called logic of the Yasukuni Shrine—that an industrialized Japan liberalized underdeveloped Asia and that the Asian people should be grateful to it—is a flagrant rejection of the postwar international order and the Japanese domestic legal basis. In the wake of recent attempts to amend Japan's postwar Constitution, former British Ambassador to Japan Hugh Cortazzi warned that "those who play with fire are likely to get burned." Current British Ambassador to Japan Tim Hitchens also recently urged Tokyo to admit its historical mistakes.

Japan's refusal to admit its mistakes and show regret or introspection is intolerable for the international society, and certainly does nothing to win trust and respect. It is little wonder that people compare a Japan with rampant right-wing elements to an unrepentant, fully armed criminal returning to the community. The neighborhood is left with no choice but to grasp their bats in self-defense and prepare for the worst.

Only by recognizing history as it is can one overcome historical issues. After World War II, German Chancellor Willy Brandt's dropping to his knees before a monument in Poland unfastened, to a large extent, the spiritual shackles cast on German nationality by historical atrocities. When commemorating the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Leningrad in January this year, German President Joachim Gauck wrote in a letter to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, "I can only think with deep sorrow and shame about the war of extermination launched by Nazi Germany against the Soviet Union." Those are the normal attitudes toward history kept by a normal country. Germany has become a leading country in Europe nowadays exactly because of its sincere apologies and introspection.

How to look at invasion? How to look at the pains and wounds caused by Japanese militarism on Asian people? How to look at post-World War II international order? How to respect other countries' territorial sovereignties? These are the questions which Japan must meditate on deeply and figure out the correct answers to. This is also the key to solving the current issues in Sino-Japanese relations. Indeed, if Japan refuses to walk out of the voodoo circle it has drawn for itself and stubbornly sticks to defying international justice by conjuring historical illusions, we will keep it company to the end. However, if it has to be this way, it will be an end that causes tremendous miseries for the entire Japanese nation.