War agony lingers amid Japan's militarism revival

Imagine a life mired in such agony. Everyday you suffer from war injuries and the pain of losing beloved ones. What's worse is the terror of a possible return of the "devils" that ruined your life when you were a child.

"The devils," a name Zhang Xiuhong still uses to refer to the Japanese soldiers, raped her and burned more than 50 girls to death in her village of Shazhouwei in Nanjing 75 years ago.

She was only 12 years old and she still remembers how her grandfather knelt down before the Japanese soldiers and begged them not to rape her.

The old woman's worry does not come from thin air, as a possible revival of militarism in Japan warns the world to stay on guard. Thursday marks the 75th anniversary of her insult in the Nanjing Massacre, a six-week slaughter that killed more than 300,000 local civilians and demobilized servicemen.

Three quarters of a century after the butchering, Japan still won't engage in similar introspection as Germany did after the Holocaust.

Some Japanese politicians even denied the massacre ever happened. They sound extremely ridiculous when hundreds of mourners from around the world -- including some Japanese -- lit candles at a vigil on Wednesday night for the people killed after Nanjing fell to Japanese invaders in World War II.

According to a latest poll, Japan's main opposition party, the Liberal Democratic Party headed by former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, is forecast to win a majority in the general election along with its ally, the New Komeito Party.

His comeback has been powered by hawkish pronouncements on military and foreign policy. This conservative ideologue has preached constitutional changes that will allow Japan to have a more active armed force. That will be an outright denial of the outcomes of the victory of the World Anti-Fascist War and a blatant challenge to the post-war international order.

Abe is not the only one to risk Sino-Japan relationship for political purposes.

Amidst the domestic economic downturn, low confidence and an irrational populist mood, Japan's political parties have plunged into a fanatical campaign with unrealistic notions, for instance, the proposal of purchasing the Diaoyu Islands, an inherent territory of China.

Whatever is behind these politicians' inflammatory speeches, be it ruling legitimacy or economic salvation, they have showed no respect to history or concern for world peace.

Millions of Asian people were killed by Japanese troops during World War II. Estimates may differ, but the difference can never serve as an excuse for Japan's denial of its past atrocity, as the death toll was not statistics but lives.

Even many Nanjingers would like to forgive what Japan did during the war and look forward to the future, but what some Japanese politicians are doing now can hardly leave Chinese people relieved, at least not the insulted old woman Zhang Xiuhong.

Japan has to show respect to history before it wins respect from other countries.