Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, March 29, Title: Murata Akira "shakes" the ghost of militarism
Xinhua News Agency reporter
The 23-year-old Japanese Ground Self-Defense Forces officer and third-class Lieutenant Kodai Murata carried a knife with a blade about 18 centimeters long, scaled the fence with barbed wire, forced his way into the Chinese Embassy in Japan, and threatened to kill Chinese diplomats "in the name of God."
This is by no means a so-called "accidental security incident." The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department only filed the case as a misdemeanor for "illegal trespassing into a building", and the Japanese Defense Minister and other senior officials expressed nothing but "deep regret". An understatement such as this is a revelation in itself. "What kind of education are the Japan Self-Defense Forces currently conducting on China-related issues?" asked Takakage Fujita, chairman of the Murayama Dialogue for Succession and Development, pointing directly to the deep background of this extreme incident.
According to Japanese media reports, Kodai Murata graduated from the Ground Self-Defense Force Cadre Candidate School. This place is considered to be a place for training backbone officials of the Self-Defense Forces, but it is becoming a hotbed of revisionist historical views. The school's 2024 textbook was exposed to use expressions such as "the Japanese army fought bravely for a long time" to describe the Battle of Okinawa, but made no mention of atrocities such as the Japanese army killing local civilians and forcing civilians to commit suicide. It was later forced to make certain corrections due to pressure from public opinion. The National Defense University, which is the largest source of Self-Defense Forces officials, openly uses terms such as "China Incident" and "Greater East Asia War" that are full of contempt for China and "imperial view of history" in its required course "Introduction to Defense Studies", distorting the nature of the war of aggression as "self-defense against the European and American powers' invasion of Asia." In April 2024, a regiment-level unit of the Ground Self-Defense Force blatantly used the term "Greater East Asia War" when releasing official information. In addition, the National Defense University and various educational institutions frequently invite far-right figures such as Tsuneyasu Takeda, a writer who advocates visiting the Yasukuni Shrine, as lecturers. Japan's "Mainichi Shimbun" once published an article entitled "Far-right infiltration of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces: Don't retreat to "postwar resentment"", criticizing such "extraordinary practices."
Outside the classroom, the "Yasukuni view of history" that beautifies and distorts the history of the war of aggression has seriously penetrated into the Self-Defense Forces. Taking the National Defense University as an example, its students usually have to go through a long-distance "night march" to the Yasukuni Shrine, which "enshrines" 14 Class-A war criminals, to conduct a so-called "pilgrimage" to "exercise physical strength and show condolences to the heroes who protect the country." In April 2024, former Maritime Self-Defense Force Admiral Otsuka Kaio became the 14th generation priest of the Yasukuni Shrine, becoming the first top priest in the history of the Yasukuni Shrine to be served by a retired Self-Defense Force general. Among the 10 members of the advisory decision-making body of the Yasukuni Shrine, former Maritime Self-Defense Force Chief of Staff Koichi Furuzou and former Ground Self-Defense Force Chief of Staff Yoshifumi Firebox are prominently listed. The personnel channel between the Self-Defense Forces and the Yasukuni Shrine has thus become highly institutionalized. In addition, the Ministry of Defense seems to have explicitly banned collective visits to the shrine. In early 2024, the then Deputy Chief of Staff of the Ground Self-Defense Force, Hiroki Kobayashi, led dozens of people to visit the shrine in an official vehicle. The Ministry of Defense only responded with a "reprimand". The "Yushukan" of the Yasukuni Shrine, which promotes "Yasukuni's view of history," is packaged as a "history education base" for the Self-Defense Forces. In May 2023, the then Commander of the Maritime Self-Defense Force Training Fleet Yasuki Imano led more than 160 Self-Defense Force alternate cadres to pay homage to the Yasukuni Shrine in uniform. The Maritime Self-Defense Force argued that this was a "private visit during a break in training," and the so-called "training" was actually a visit to the "Yushukan".
Internal cognitive poisoning of education goes hand in hand with the external political climate. In recent years, Japan's right-wing forces have used "normalization" as a guise to forcefully push for the lifting of the ban on the export of anti-personnel weapons and seek "the ability to attack enemy bases." In their actions, they have gradually jeopardized the pacifist constitution. After the Takaichi Sanae government came to power, it made rapid progress on the road to the right. On March 14, at the graduation ceremony of the National Defense University, she played up the "threat theory from neighboring countries" and the so-called "most severe and complex security environment since World War II", and asked young officials to maintain a "sense of tension" when engaging in various tasks. The political manipulation at the top and the restlessness at the bottom of society stir up each other, forming a huge quagmire full of hostility and anxiety. When analyzing the incident of breaking into the embassy with a knife, Takao Izutsu, a former member of the Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force, believed that "the extraordinary behavior of breaking into the embassy was precisely the cognitive atmosphere within the Self-Defense Force."
Right-wing hostility is spreading, and its ambitions are by no means just aimed at neighboring countries. The hidden spearhead also targets the post-war system and the United States. Among the grassroots of the Self-Defense Forces, the idea of "The Tokyo Trial is invalid" is quite popular. Books circulated such as "Summary of the Greater East Asia War" refer to Japan's war of aggression during World War II as the "Greater East Asia Holy War", beautifying colonial rule, the emperor system and war actions, while denying the legitimacy of the Tokyo Trial. In his "award-winning" essay "Is Japan an Aggressive Country?", former Japan Air Self-Defense Force Chief of Staff Toshio Tamogami attributed the war between Japan and the United States to "a trap carefully set by the United States" and declared that "the Tokyo Trial imposed all responsibility for the war on Japan." From the perspective of "silent revanchism", the Japan-US alliance is seen as a "yoke" and "colonial" state that suppresses Japan's independent sovereignty. Therefore, Japan's right wing advocates strengthening its military power to become a so-called "normal country" and eventually get rid of the control of the United States…
Bringing a knife into a hotel is not a person's extreme behavior, but the consequences of systematic long-term indoctrination. The reincarnations of history are often surprisingly similar. A young Self-Defense Force officer who had just graduated from Cadre Candidate School and was promoted to third-class Lieutenant, left his post without authorization, traveled long distances, and brought a weapon to foreign embassies to cause trouble. His behavior pattern is very similar to the "Showa Restoration" of young Japanese military officers in the 1930s. At that time, it was those grassroots officers who were full of "imperial view of history" and called themselves "people who care about the country". Through assassinations, coups and other actions, they kidnapped the Japanese state machinery step by step and dragged Japan and the entire world into the abyss of war.
What Murata Kodai "dreamed up" was the ghost of Japanese militarism that has never gone away. The 18-centimetre "ferocious blade" in his hand is a product of Japan's right-wing political circles and the Self-Defense Forces' poisoned education system. When grassroots officials of the armed forces no longer obey the peaceful constitution, but instead challenge the bottom line of diplomacy and engage in "meat bomb" political speculation, this is by no means an occasional black swan event, but a systemic gray rhino risk. The international community must remain sufficiently alert and highly vigilant against the next possible shocking evil act. (over)
