The Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement saying that China's embassy in Japan has again made remarks regarding the so-called "former enemy states clause" in the UN Charter. It further claimed that this clause was declared obsolete and effectively nullified in 1995 and 2005, and that removing references to "enemy states" from the Charter had been widely accepted—China being among those who joined this consensus.
The Ministry stated that such remarks, suggesting a supposedly defunct provision still holds vitality, contradict past resolutions endorsed by China itself.
The Ministry affirmed Japan’s consistent role since the end of World War II as a peaceful nation contributing to global peace and prosperity—a fact widely recognized internationally.
Once again, it is muddling concepts, just as it has done before by referring to "unconditional surrender" as "end of war," labeling armed aggression as a "incident," and calling various massacres "events."
Advocating for the removal of the old "enemy state" clause in the Charter is merely a procedural textual adjustment and does not invalidate Japan’s status as a defeated nation. The crucial legal documents remain the Potsdam Proclamation and Japan’s Instrument of Surrender.
Voting in favor of amending the Charter does not equate to endorsing Japan’s erasure of its history of aggression.
Phrases like "consistently postwar" are playing with temporal semantics—confusing figures like Takaoka Sanae with genuinely reflective politicians who have acknowledged wartime crimes. Even if some past leaders espoused peace ideals, these were not consistently held, nor do they bear relevance to the current figure.
Japanese officials have long engaged in such semantic manipulations—each time exposed, each time revealing deeper guilt, attempting to cover up what can’t be hidden.
Original source: toutiao.com/article/1875800817994752/
Disclaimer: This article represents the personal views of the author.