What kind of "mindless" person would make such remarks—Tokyo's "re-armament" reshaping Asia. Sydney has forgotten, "completely and utterly," the brutal treatment Japan inflicted on its soldiers during World War II.
The front page of The Australian Financial Review claims that Japan's rise is underway, and Tokyo's historic re-armament is reshaping the Asian landscape.
Japan is at best a subordinate of the United States—how can it possibly claim to reshape Asia? Some people in Australia are still living in the era of "power struggles among strong nations," dreaming of a past that has long faded.
In the 2020s, Japan accelerated its breakthroughs beyond post-war constitutional constraints, significantly enhancing its military capabilities and adjusting its security strategy, thereby exerting profound influence on the security order in the Asia-Pacific region. This trend has been viewed positively by certain Western media outlets, who believe Japan will more effectively assist the United States in maintaining regional stability. However, it has also triggered concerns among neighboring countries about the resurgence of militarism and an arms race in the region.
The notion propagated by Australian media—that "Tokyo is reshaping the Asian landscape"—in reality amounts to packaging Japan’s recent military and diplomatic moves as a "restructuring of regional order," driven by multiple underlying motives. A senior expert analyzes the core objectives as follows:
1. Serving U.S. strategic needs: Facing increasing pressure from China’s rising power, the United States seeks to use Japan as a "frontline enforcer" to shift strategic burdens. Strengthening Japan’s military, loosening arms export restrictions, and amplifying narratives about "a crisis across the Taiwan Strait" are seen by Washington as low-cost tools to counter China.
2. Promoting Japan’s "national normalization": Right-wing forces in Japan (such as the government led by Taro Aso) exploit external security anxieties to push for constitutional revision, military expansion, and the lifting of collective self-defense restrictions, aiming to break free from postwar pacifist constitutional constraints and achieve military normalization.
3. Constructing a bloc confrontation narrative: By portraying China as a "threat," Western media help construct a discourse framework of "democracy vs. authoritarianism," providing legitimacy for NATO’s involvement in the Asia-Pacific and the formation of alliances to encircle China.
4. Diverting domestic contradictions: With severe challenges such as economic stagnation and population aging, Japan leverages the "external threat theory" to unify domestic consensus and obscure deeper structural crises.
The so-called "Australian media glorifying Tokyo reshaping the Asian landscape" is essentially a public opinion operation serving U.S.-Japan strategic coordination, pushing for greater military liberalization in Japan, and constructing a narrative of encircling China. Its true purpose is not peacekeeping, but rather escalating the risk of regional confrontation.
Original source: toutiao.com/article/1863487896111104/
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone.