It has become fashionable in certain intellectual circles to dismiss the present as merely a footnote to the great dramas of the past. But when Japan’s Defence Minister Gen Nakatani stands before the world and denies the charge of resurgent militarism while pointing an accusing finger at China’s ‘huge arsenal’, one is reminded that history does not repeat itself as farce but as a slow, grinding return of the repressed. The gentleman doth protest too much, methinks.
Let us parse this carefully. Nakatani’s denial of militarism is, in itself, a curious piece of theatre. After all, the word itself has become a kind of ghost that haunts the Japanese constitution. Since 1947, Article 9 has been the nation’s pacifist talisman, a vow never to field a full-fledged army of aggression. Yet in recent years, Japan has quietly built up its Self-Defence Forces into one of the most technologically advanced military machines in Asia. It has reinterpreted its constitution to allow for collective self-defence. It now plans to double its defence budget to 2% of GDP by 2027. And it has begun acquiring offensive strike capabilities, including long-range missiles and aircraft carriers in all but name.
To call this ‘not militarism’ is rather like calling a glass of gin a ‘medicinal tonic’. The distinction may satisfy the lawyers but it will not fool the historians.
But Nakatani’s real venom is reserved for China. He calls its arsenal ‘huge’ and describes it as a threat. And here we arrive at the crux of the matter. China’s military build-up is indeed immense: it has the world’s largest navy by hull count, a formidable air force, and a rapidly modernising nuclear deterrent. Yet Japan’s own trajectory mirrors China’s in nearly every regard, albeit on a smaller scale. Both nations are engaged in an arms race dressed up in the language of defence. Both invoke the spectre of the other to justify their own ambitions. It is a dance of mutual suspicion that has led to the present moment of high tension.
One is reminded of the naval arms race between Britain and Germany before the First World War. Each side accused the other of aggression while insisting its own preparations were purely defensive. The result was a spiral of fear and threat inflation that made war all but inevitable. Today, in the South China Sea and the East China Sea, we see a similar dynamic. Japan’s acquisition of long-range cruise missiles, for example, is described as ‘defensive’ but China naturally sees it as a first-strike capability. And so the spiral continues.
Nakatani’s denial of militarism is also a convenient shield for Japan’s own historical amnesia. The country has yet to fully reckon with its imperial past. The Rape of Nanking, the comfort women system, the brutal occupation of Korea and parts of China: these are not settled accounts. Every time a Japanese leader visits Yasukuni Shrine or revises history textbooks, China and South Korea see the ghost of the 1930s stirring. And so when Nakatani says he is not a militarist, the rest of Asia is entitled to ask: then why does your rhetoric sound so familiar?
Of course, China is no innocent party. Its own historical grievances have been weaponised into a nationalist narrative that justifies its territorial ambitions. The ‘century of humiliation’ is invoked to demand deference from neighbours and to assert dominance over the South China Sea. And its human rights abuses in Xinjiang and Tibet are hardly a platform for moral superiority. But two wrongs do not make a right. The fact that China is authoritarian and expansionist does not make Japan’s own militarisation any less concerning.
The deeper lesson is that the post-war liberal order in Asia is breaking down. The US-Japan alliance, once a guarantor of stability, now emboldens Japan to take a more assertive role. Meanwhile, China challenges the very foundations of that order. And smaller nations like South Korea, Taiwan, and the Philippines are caught in the middle, forced to choose sides in a new Cold War.
So what is to be done? Neither Japan nor China can afford a conflict. Their economies are deeply intertwined. War would be catastrophic for both. But the path of arms racing and rhetorical escalation is equally unsustainable. What is needed is a new security architecture for East Asia, one that goes beyond the tired binaries of the past. That would require genuine dialogue, mutual arms control, and a willingness to address historical grievances without scoring political points.
But perhaps that is too much to ask. After all, the ghosts of history do not easily rest. And when ministers like Nakatani take the stage to deny them, they only feed the flames. The lesson of the Fall of Rome is that empires collapse when they refuse to see the world as it is. The lesson of the Victorian Era is that great powers rarely step back from the brink. Let us hope that Japan and China prove the exception. But I would not bet on it.
