On January 14, Ambassador Wang Lutong published a signed article titled "Be Vigilant Against Any Resurgence of Militarism" in leading Indonesian media outlets, including The Jakarta Post. The full text is as follows:
Be Vigilant Against Any Resurgence of Militarism
H.E.Wang Lutong, the Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China to the Republic of Indonesia
Recently, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi made dangerous remarks at the Japanese Diet, claiming that a so-called “Taiwan contingency” could constitute an “existential crisis” enabling Japan to exercise the right of collective self-defense, implicitly suggesting that Japan might intervene in the Taiwan Strait by military means. This is the first time since Japan’s defeat in 1945 that a Japanese leader has openly revealed ambitions to militarily intervene in the Taiwan question and sent an explicit signal of coercive intent toward China. Such remarks constitute a blatant interference in China’s internal affairs, violate the one-China principle, and challenge the post-World War II international order. Such wrong behavior will bring extreme negative impact. The Chinese government and the Chinese people express strong indignation and firm opposition.
History must not be forgotten. Japanese militarism once brought profound disasters to all of Asia, and the trauma it inflicted remains deeply etched in the collective memory of the region. Japan did not only launch brutal wars of aggression against China, but also trampled much of Southeast Asia. From 1942 to 1945, Japanese forces occupied vast areas, including Indonesia, imposed ruthless military rule, plundered resources, forcibly conscripted labor, created famine, and brutally suppressed resistance movements, inflicting indelible suffering on local populations.
In China, the crimes of Japanese militarism are too numerous to recount. In 1895, Japan forcibly seized Taiwan from China through the unequal Treaty of Shimonoseki and imposed nearly half a century of colonial rule, oppressing the people of Taiwan, plundering resources on a massive scale, and severely undermining Taiwan’s social development. In 1945, after 14 years of arduous struggle, the Chinese people won the great victory in the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression. Japan surrendered unconditionally and formally accepted international legal instruments such as the Cairo Declaration and the Potsdam Proclamation. They unequivocally affirmed that Taiwan should be returned to China. China thus resumed the exercise of sovereignty over Taiwan. This was not only a major outcome of the Chinese people’s victory in the war, but also a cornerstone of the postwar international order.
Yet today, the Japanese government openly attempts to forcibly link China Taiwan question with Japan’s so-called “security concerns” seeking to manufacture a pretext for military intervention in the Taiwan Strait. Such actions seriously violate the political foundation of Japan’s explicit commitments to the one-China principle as set out in the four political documents between China and Japan, including the China–Japan Joint Statement. They also openly depart from the important consensus between the two countries that “they should be cooperative partners rather than threats to each other”, severely erode the foundations of China–Japan relations, and send extremely dangerous and erroneous signals to “Taiwan independence” separatist forces.
The international community must clearly recognize that these remarks by Japan are neither isolated incidents nor accidental misstatements. In essence, they seek new political justifications for military expansion and conceal a grave risk of a resurgence of militarism. Although Japan established a pacifist constitution after the war, it never carried out a thorough reckoning with militarism, whose specter has never fully dissipated. In recent years, Japan has ignored the painful lessons that militarism brought upon itself, repeatedly reneged on its postwar commitments, gradually abandoned the principle of “exclusive defense”, sharply increased defense spending, and worked to develop long-range offensive capabilities. It has even repeatedly tested the limits on nuclear policy, attempting to break through the “Three Non-Nuclear Principles” and stir up an arms race. This is an extremely dangerous trend. If left uncorrected, it will erode the foundations of international governance, undermine basic principles of international relations such as sovereign equality and non-interference in internal affairs, and inevitably endanger regional and global peace and stability. It deserves the highest vigilance from all countries.
The Taiwan question concerns the very core of China’s core interests. Achieving complete national reunification is the shared aspiration of all Chinese people and an irreversible historical trend that no force can stop. China solemnly warns Japan: the Taiwan question is purely China’s internal affair. Any attempt to intervene in the Taiwan Strait by force or quasi-force will constitute aggression against China and will inevitably be met with resolute countermeasures. Japan must immediately cease all boundary-crossing provocations on the Taiwan question, correct its erroneous words and deeds, and genuinely abide by the one-China principle. Otherwise, all serious consequences arising therefrom must be borne solely by Japan.
A country that cannot properly face history will find it difficult to grasp the future. Eighty years ago, China, together with Asian countries including Indonesia, paid enormous sacrifices to defeat Japanese militarism. Today, the peoples of Asia cherish the hard-won peace even more deeply and are even more vigilant against any form of militarism’s resurgence. History must not be distorted, and justice must not be challenged. Those who play with fire will surely burn themselves. Any attempt to obstruct China’s reunification process or undermine regional peace and stability is doomed to complete failure.
