Do you live in fear of the specter of “Japanese neo-militarism”? Are you girding yourself for another campaign of advance across Asia? Perhaps you fret over the “gray rhino” of remilitarization in Tokyo, “charging toward peace and order in the Asia-Pacific”?

I doubt it. The specter of “neo-militarism” is the latest attack line from Beijing, a neologism rolled out over the past few months repackaging longstanding accusations that Tokyo is reviving the spirit of World War II. The phrase has appeared with increasing frequency in briefings and state outlets since Beijing took offense with Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi.

“The malevolent emergence of neo-militarism in Japan is putting regional peace and stability under threat,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said recently. “The international community must stay on high alert and take resolute countermeasures.”

Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi latched on to the wording at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore last month, when he took a thinly veiled swipe at China for its accusations, despite Beijing holding vast numbers of nuclear weapons and bombers.

The phrasing might be new, but the charge is familiar. It might have carried weight in the decades after the war, when the trauma of Japan’s imperial ambitions was a recent memory. Yet in today’s........

© The Japan Times