Eighty-one years ago, on August 15, Emperor Hirohito broadcast the Imperial Rescript on the Termination of the War, announcing Japan's acceptance of the Potsdam Proclamation. Eighty-one years later to the day, the leadership of Japan's ruling party offered its own form of commemoration — a "first-ever collective visit": Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi offered a tamagushi-ryō (a ritual offering) to Yasukuni Shrine; Defense Minister Shinjirō Koizumi visited in person; Secretary-General Shunichi Suzuki, General Council Chair Haruko Arimura, and Election Strategy Committee Chair Yasuhide Nishimura paid their respects together — the first collective Yasukuni visit by senior LDP figures.
The Guancha Japan-politics observer's judgment of this collective action is worth recording more carefully than the event itself: the "leadership collective visit" is a scaled-down, stripped-back version of "Takaichi's own visit." The original plan called for all four of the LDP's "top carriage horses" (the secretary-general, the general council chair, the policy research council chair, and the election strategy committee chair) to turn out together; but because Policy Research Council Chair Takayuki Kobayashi's constituency in Chiba Prefecture had been hit by rare torrential rain and he had to return home to handle the disaster response, the three who actually showed up were the secretary-general, the general council chair, and the election strategy chair. The analysis drives straight to the point: those who actually visited Yasukuni today are, in effect, Takaichi's stand-ins — desensitizing foreign attention while pandering to the far-right domestic base.
I · Takaichi Has the Thief's Heart, but Not the Thief's Nerve
Takaichi's relationship with Yasukuni Shrine was put on the table during her two campaigns for the LDP presidency. She made "support for the Yasukuni visit" a personal selling point and once boasted, "Even if I become prime minister, I will keep visiting." Reality, however, is that a sitting prime minister's visit carries consequences for relations with China and South Korea — and no one is willing to bear that responsibility.
According to Kyodo News, Shunichi Suzuki told reporters that this time Takaichi offered a tamagushi-ryō in her capacity as LDP president, at her own expense. Since the LDP returned to power, prime ministers have offered a tamagushi-ryō at Yasukuni on August 15 in their capacity as party president for fourteen consecutive years — Shigeru Ishiba, while in office, was no exception. The act is the same; the underlying logic is not. For every prior president it has been an expedient to placate the party's hardliners; for Takaichi it is a compromise between "the thief's heart" and "the thief's nerve."
The criticism from former Osaka governor Tōru Hashimoto is circulating on Japanese networks: "Anyone with half a brain can see that Japan's current prime minister cannot possibly visit [Yasukuni]." Former Takaichi supporters are grumbling online: "What 'I'll visit even as prime minister' — that was a lie. Pure verbal fraud."
Guancha's analysis offers an institutional explanation for why this "substitute plan" could actually land: after Takaichi took power she assembled an LDP core leadership with an unusually conservative cast. The 73-year-old secretary-general Shunichi Suzuki, elected to the Diet twelve times, is the son of former prime minister Suzuki Zenkō and the brother-in-law of Tarō Asō; the 55-year-old general council chair Haruko Arimura, known for opposing the creation of a female imperial branch and opposing selective separate surnames for married couples, is the first sitting member of the House of Councillors to hold the post — widely read as Takaichi rewarding a loyal ally; the 51-year-old policy research council chair Takayuki Kobayashi, the second-hardest candidate after Takaichi herself, has a grandfather who served in the invading Japanese army in China; and the 63-year-old election strategy committee chair Yasuhide Nishimura, an old acquaintance of the Abe faction, has visited Yasukuni many times.
Shen Yi, commenting on the same day, added an aside to this performance: Takaichi not only offered the ritual fee but had secretary-general Shunichi Suzuki "represent Sanae Takaichi, going to the ghost shrine with respect and longing for the devils" — "the mama-san has truly leveled up and is causing trouble."
II · The Ishiba Counterpoint: Facing the Past Squarely
Forming a contrast to Takaichi's "substitute visit" is former prime minister Shigeru Ishiba's statement in a Nikkei Asia interview on the eve of August 15. He said bluntly that Japan cannot deny what it did to Asian countries in the past, and cannot let those events fade with the passage of time — "Facing the past squarely is essential to Japan's future."
Ishiba made clear that on war responsibility he "disagrees with Abe" — Abe declared in 2015 that Japanese grandchildren who had nothing to do with the war should not be made to "bear the fate of continuing to apologize." Ishiba also disclosed that what truly changed his understanding of Japan's wartime history in Asia was a 2003 meeting with Singapore's former prime minister Lee Kuan Yew. Visiting Singapore at the time as Japan's Defense Agency director-general, he was pressed by Lee: "What did Japan do to Singapore? Tell me what you know." After Ishiba answered, Lee pushed back: "That's all? That's all you know?" Lee admonished him: "You have to truly understand what Japan did to Singapore, or there can be no real trust between our two countries."
Several points in Ishiba's reading are worth noting: he says modern Japanese "perhaps should not have to apologize themselves, but they must understand what happened in the past — that is our responsibility to Asia"; he confesses plainly that Japan's relative position is unlikely to rise in the future — "Over the next century, Japan's population will halve" — while "China and other Asian countries are rising"; and he ties the question of historical understanding directly to Japan's standing in Asia going forward.
One detail is telling: on the 80th anniversary of Japan's unconditional surrender in 2025, Ishiba, still in office, did not deliver the customary formal government statement, partly because conservative forces within the LDP objected; in October of that year he instead issued "Reflections on the Eightieth Anniversary of the War's End" in the form of a press conference. Nikkei Asia notes that it remains unclear how the current prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, will speak about the origins of the war; if she departs from the historical understanding that successive Japanese governments have maintained on this question, China–Japan relations could grow still more complicated.
III · Beijing's Framing: A Threat That Must Be Guarded Against
On the same day, Ministry of National Defense spokesperson Chen Xi delivered the official framing in response: eighty-one years ago, Japanese militarism dragged the whole of Asia into an abyss of blood and fire; the Nanjing Massacre, the Bataan Death March, the Thailand–Burma Death Railway, and other atrocities inflicted immense suffering on Asian peoples and the world. Japan in defeat never truly drew lessons from history; it has long indulged right-wing forces in their distortion and denial of the crimes of aggression, and has tried by every means to break through the constraints of the "peace constitution" and the "exclusively defense-oriented" principle. More recently, the Japanese side has used the pretext of "external threats" to sharply raise its defense budget, aggressively develop offensive capabilities, and massively expand its military industry — Japan's "new-style militarism" has, quite literally, run out of hiding places, and the danger can no longer be ignored.
The PLA Daily long-form piece spread the ledger of "new-style militarism" even finer: Japanese right-wing forces freely rewrite history textbooks, deliberately foreground the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic-bomb victim narrative, deny the legitimacy of the Tokyo Trial, frequently visit Yasukuni Shrine, and even use AI to fabricate false historical material; more than four million Chinese laborers were forcibly conscripted by the Japanese army, with mass death and injury from harsh conditions and overwork; this year Japan sent Self-Defense Forces personnel to the Philippines to take part in the U.S.–Philippines "Balikatan" joint exercises — the first time since the Second World War that Japan has dispatched combat troops on a large scale to a live joint exercise, and the first time it has launched offensive missiles abroad.
A commentary in Beijing Daily pulled the camera back to the source of the postwar reckoning: "The reason Japanese right-wing forces today dare to act so wantonly is the祸根 sown by the incomplete postwar reckoning. The cracks left behind then have been gnawed and dug deeper and deeper by successive generations of demons and monsters."
Alongside these official statements ran one piece of enforcement news from the same day: China Coast Guard vessels sailed in formation through the territorial waters east of Huangwei Yu, an islet belonging to the Diaoyu (Senkaku) Islands.
The 8·15 collective visit is a carefully calculated substitute trick: Takaichi uses the "four top horses" to do her work for her and account to the far-right base, while diluting the political cost of a prime-ministerial visit with the fourteen-year-old "tamagushi-ryō tradition." But stand-ins can change who shows up at the shrine; they cannot change what the act is. When Beijing frames it as "new-style militarism finally running out of hiding places," and Ishiba holds it up against "facing the past squarely," the audience watching this performance is not seeing the ceremony of a visit — it is watching historical revisionism once again escalate at the institutional level.
Guancha (2026-08-15 08:27) — the first collective Yasukuni visit by senior LDP figures; Takaichi's tamagushi-ryō, Koizumi's visit, Suzuki/Arimura/Nishimura's joint visit; the "leadership collective visit" as a scaled-down version of "Takaichi's own visit" — the substitute logic; Takaichi "has the thief's heart, not the thief's nerve"; the fourteen-year tamagushi-ryō tradition; the four-horse group portrait; the FY2027 defense budget of ¥8.9 trillion; Ministry of National Defense spokesperson Chen Xi's "new-style militarism" framing.
Shen Yi (2026-08-15 09:27) — Takaichi not only offers the ritual fee but has secretary-general Suzuki visit Yasukuni on her behalf; "the mama-san has truly leveled up and is causing trouble."
Guancha, republishing Nikkei Asia (2026-08-15 09:27) — Ishiba interview: facing the past squarely is essential to Japan's future; "on this point I disagree with Abe"; the 2003 meeting with Lee Kuan Yew that changed his historical understanding; modern Japanese "perhaps should not have to apologize themselves, but must understand the past"; "over the next century, Japan's population will halve"; the absence of a formal statement on the 80th anniversary, replaced by the press-conference format "Reflections on the Eightieth Anniversary of the War's End."
Chang'anjie Zhishi republishing PLA Daily (2026-08-15 07:31) — the reckoning with Japan's denial of historical guilt must be thorough; over four million Chinese laborers forcibly conscripted by the Japanese army died or were injured; right-wing rewriting of textbooks, foregrounding of the atomic-bomb narrative, denial of the Tokyo Trial, use of AI to fabricate false historical material; SDF's first large-scale deployment to the Philippines for the Balikatan exercise, first launch of offensive missiles abroad.
Chang'anjie Zhishi republishing Beijing Daily (2026-08-15 07:27) — the trial of Japan's surrender is far from over; the祸根 sown by the incomplete postwar reckoning; the rhetoric of denying guilt, the agitation of military buildup, and the ambition to destabilize the South China Sea.
Shen Yi (2026-08-15 06:42) — China Coast Guard ship 2303 "Meishan" and three other vessels sailed in formation through the territorial waters east of Huangwei Yu, an islet belonging to the Diaoyu (Senkaku) Islands.
IV · The Remote Bow: A Lot Said, No Reflection (incremental addition, 2026-08-15)
The morning's collective visit put the "stand-ins" on stage; in the afternoon, Takaichi herself added a move. According to Kyodo News, when Sanae Takaichi arrived at the Nippon Budokan for the National Memorial Service for the War Dead, she bowed in the direction of Yasukuni Shrine, several hundred meters away — her entourage explained that she was performing a "remote bow" (yōhai) toward the shrine. The stand-in act has now upgraded from the "four top horses" to the prime minister herself — except that her body stopped at the Budokan while her heart was sent to the shrine.
Beyond the remote bow, the address itself is the more worthwhile text to dissect. At the ceremony Takaichi said "the horrors of war must never be repeated," and said "Japan can be a shining lighthouse for the Indo-Pacific," but the word "reflection" (hansei) appeared nowhere in the address, nor did she mention Japan's responsibility for the atrocities committed against Asian countries. Chang'anjie Zhishi's account provides last year's reference point: on August 15, 2025, then-prime minister Shigeru Ishiba's address used the word "reflection" — this year that word has disappeared from the prime minister's mouth.
On the same day, Defense Minister Shinjirō Koizumi, after his "worship of the ghosts," also posted online claiming to champion peace: "While swearing never again to wage war, I once more reaffirm my responsibility to continue walking the path of peace as a postwar peaceful nation." The visit and the peace pledge were packed into the same paragraph; combined with the scene of around 90 cross-party Diet members making a collective visit, the whole composition of this ceremony comes together.
The earlier section recorded the "substitute logic" of the morning's "four top horses" collective visit. The two details added in the afternoon push the trick one layer further: Takaichi herself used the "remote bow" to complete the bodily gesture, and used an address "that did not mention reflection" to complete the textual gesture — the substitute plan is now complete.
V · The Neighbors' Memory: Korea's Reaction on Liberation Day
August 15 is also South Korea's Gwangbokjeol, National Liberation Day. On that day the ruling Democratic Party of Korea issued a written statement with unusually sharp language: the Yasukuni visit is a "provocation out of step with the times" and "an utterly irresponsible act"; "the defense minister, who should be protecting peace, and the minister in charge of children's policy, who should be nurturing the next generation, bowed their heads before war criminals… trampling universal human rights and the values of peace through self-contradiction." The statement urged the Takaichi cabinet to immediately halt this "historic regression" and called on Japan to "shake off the obsolete ghosts of imperialism."
Kim Dae-sik, a National Assembly member widely regarded as a "Japan expert," counted the matter still more finely: Koizumi had visited the Seoul National Cemetery on June 27 of this year and said he would further deepen Japan–ROK defense cooperation — "yet less than two months later he visits Yasukuni again today, unquestionably undermining the trust our two countries have painstakingly accumulated."
Worth recording is the gradient of Korea's language: the official statement uses "provocation," the legislator uses "damage to trust," while at the same moment China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs uses "strongly condemn + solemnly protest + strongly protest." Three neighbors, three different intensities of language, all pointing to the same judgment — Japan's historical revisionism is producing a quantifiable cost for regional relations.
VI · Evidence and Memory: Fresh Nanjing Records, the Unit 731 Photo Album, and a New Custodian
Beyond the political statements, the relay of historical evidence produced three events in a single day.
From Nanjing, on August 15 the Memorial Hall of the Victims of the Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders took in a new batch of cultural and documentary material: more than 150 pieces/sets of cultural relics and over 100 pieces/sets of documents. The heaviest piece is a personal letter dated December 20, 1937 — one week after the fall of Nanjing — from Ishikawa Morita, a soldier in the Imperial Japanese Army's 16th Division, in which he wrote, "A few days ago, I killed more than ten thousand defeated stragglers." This is the perpetrator's contemporaneous record of the massacre, mutually corroborated by the diary of Tō Shirō, a soldier in the same division; the same batch also includes postcards depicting the attack on the Jinling Arsenal, two sets of chemical-warfare training materials, and 861 pages of Japanese-invasion documents from the French Foreign Ministry's Nantes diplomatic archive center.
The photographic evidence from Unit 731 has now surfaced for the first time. An NHK documentary, The Hidden Unit: A Silent Postwar, disclosed nearly 400 photographs of Unit 731 members — purchased in 2022 by Chinese collector Zou Dehuai from a used-book store in Tokyo for ¥860,000, with more than 200 taken in China between 1943 and 1945, covering personnel from major to lieutenant colonel, including senior managers such as Kitano Masaji and Kikuchi Hitoshi. The documentary interviewed family members of unit members, lifting the lid on the collective silence in which the perpetrators returned to "normal life" after the war.
The transmission of memory also passed into new hands that day: Christoph Reinhardt, great-grandson of John Rabe — author of The Diaries of John Rabe — became one of the fifth cohort of Custodians of the Historical Memory of the Nanjing Massacre. In 2017 he handed Rabe's personal effects to the Chinese embassy in Germany; in December 2025 he donated further precious artifacts to the Memorial Hall. Only 21 living survivors remain on the registry, while the ranks of custodians have grown to 44.
VII · Shen Yi: This Is a Contest of Strategic Cognition
Among all the day's commentaries, Shen Yi's long-form piece offers the most complete framework. His judgment is that Japan's revival of a new-style militarism has "entered a wholly new phase," and that three details of the day constitute breakthroughs: senior LDP figures' collective visit; Takaichi's formal offering of materials, while having senior LDP figures put in the words that "the prime minister did not come in person, but the prime minister's formal [respect] is conveyed" — a step away from a prime minister visiting in an official capacity; and the renewed regulation of order at the Yasukuni gates, with video of mass visits by Japanese citizens broadcast directly on TV channels.
Shen Yi's warning falls on correcting China's own perception: Japanese militarism has a "quintessential whole-of-nation character." The whole-of-nation system of eighty-one years ago was never substantively dismantled; today's Japanese elite's inner ideological core "comes from a militarist thought that, over those eighty-one years, was never substantively interrupted but instead kept spreading, fermenting, and deforming." His judgment: Japan is "a Cthulhu nest that was never properly cleaned out, and that is now on the verge of completing its re-contamination"; the only open question is "when this revived beast will tear off the last formal seal — that is, complete the revision of Japan's pacifist constitution."
He also identifies militarism's two roots: Japan's traditional Shinto culture, and the Meiji Restoration's wholesale absorption of Western social Darwinism. These are different links on the same chain as the "four faces" framework and the ¥8.9 trillion defense budget — when the "whole-of-nation" dimension and the "cultural root" dimension are stacked together, the August 15 visit is no longer the individual behavior of politicians; it is the system's self-confirmation.
The morning's substitute trick completed its own self-repair in the afternoon: Takaichi used the "remote bow" to complete the bodily gesture, and used the address "that did not mention reflection" to complete the textual gesture; Korea, under the banner of Liberation Day, issued "provocation"-level criticism, while China answered with "strongly condemn + solemnly protest"; at the same time, fresh Nanjing evidence, the Unit 731 photo album, and Rabe's descendant's custodianship form a relay of the evidence chain on the same day — political statements and historical evidence escalate in both directions on the same day. The date August 15 is shifting, from a memorial day into a contest.
Guancha republishing Kyodo News (2026-08-15 15:58) — Takaichi performs a remote bow toward Yasukuni from outside the Budokan; her address "the horrors of war must never be repeated" but does not mention "reflection"; the Indo-Pacific lighthouse line; the LDP's first collective visit = the substitute logic; the Foreign Ministry's strong condemnation and solemn protest.
Chang'anjie Zhishi republishing Jiji Press (2026-08-15 15:38) — Takaichi performs a remote bow toward Yasukuni.
Chang'anjie Zhishi republishing CCTV International (2026-08-15 16:07) — Takaichi's address does not mention "reflection" (Ishiba did last year); the "war dead" framing; the remote bow; Koizumi worshipping the ghosts and then championing peace; around 90 cross-party Diet members making a collective visit; the Foreign Ministry's response.
Chang'anjie Zhishi republishing CCTV (2026-08-15 13:35) — ROK ruling Democratic Party statement: the visit is "a provocation out of step with the times"; Kim Dae-sik's "deep regret"; the contrast with the June 27 visit to the Seoul National Cemetery.
Shen Yi (2026-08-15 13:35) — blocking Japan's revival of new-style militarism is a contest of strategic cognition; the three-step breakthrough (collective visit / the tamagushi-ryō "formally conveys" / the renewed order at Yasukuni's gates); the whole-of-nation character; the Cthulhu-nest metaphor; the Shinto + social-Darwinism roots.
Chang'anjie Zhishi (2026-08-15 15:56) — fresh evidence of the Nanjing Massacre: Ishikawa Morita's December 20, 1937 letter, "killed more than ten thousand defeated stragglers"; postcards; chemical-warfare training materials; 861 pages of French diplomatic-archive documents; donations from young students.
Shen Yi (2026-08-15 14:15) — Unit 731's vivisection department's private photo album discovered for the first time: nearly 400 photographs, Zou Dehuai's ¥860,000 purchase, NHK documentary The Hidden Unit, Kitano Masaji and Kikuchi Hitoshi among those pictured.
Chang'anjie Zhishi (2026-08-15 14:50) — Rabe's great-grandson Christoph Reinhardt becomes a fifth-cohort custodian of the historical memory of the Nanjing Massacre; only 21 survivors remain.
Chang'anjie Zhishi (2026-08-15 11:08) — Foreign Ministry response: strongly condemning Japan's negative moves on Yasukuni Shrine; solemn protest and strong protest.
VIII · The Evening Escalation: From the Ministry of National Defense to the People's Daily, Four Layers of Framing (incremental addition, 2026-08-16)
Once the day's stand-in performance ended, the official framing escalated across the board. At 18:00, Ministry of National Defense spokesperson Jiang Bin, in his press-conference reply, pushed the framing from "condemnation" to "reckoning": Yasukuni Shrine is "the spiritual tool and symbol of Japanese militarism's wars of external aggression," enshrining "war criminals whose hands are drenched in the blood of the peoples of Asia-Pacific countries"; Japan's acts "are in essence an effort to mask and deny the crimes of aggression, a challenge to the victory of the World Anti-Fascist War and to the postwar international order"; Jiang Bin in particular noted that this year is the 80th anniversary of the opening of the Tokyo Trial, and urged Japan "to take concrete action to make a thorough break with militarism, and to halt the dangerous moves of 're-militarization'" — and delivered what amounted to an ultimatum-style warning: if Japan persists in advancing "new-style militarism," it "will once again face the judgment of justice and the reckoning of history."
At 19:00, Jun Zhengping took the relay, placing the "worship of the ghosts" within the larger pattern of Japan's recent security policy: the wholesale reorientation of security policy, the persistent breach of the "exclusively defense-oriented" principle, the lifting of the ban on collective self-defense, the loosening of arms exports, the open interference in the Taiwan question, and the attempt to revise the "Three Non-Nuclear Principles" — "these moves are layered on top of one another, gravely deviating from the international responsibilities Japan owes as a defeated state." His judgment mirrors Jiang Bin's: "if they go astray again, what awaits them will be only more painful defeat and more thorough reckoning."
At 22:00, the spokesperson of the Chinese Embassy in Japan delivered the third layer in still more direct language: expressing "strong indignation and severe condemnation" over Japan's negative moves on Yasukuni Shrine, having "lodged solemn representations and strong protests with the Japanese side"; "do not walk onto the defendant's bench of history again." People's Daily, at 23:00 in its "Goodnight, Tomorrow" evening piece, placed the 1945 unconditional surrender alongside today's Yasukuni visits: "On the one hand verbally championing the pursuit of peace, on the other kneeling in worship before the ringleaders of the war of aggression" — within a single day, four layers — the Ministry of National Defense, Jun Zhengping, the embassy, and the official media — completed a relay with what was almost the same sentence.
South Korea's reaction also escalated over the course of the day. In the afternoon, the ROK Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a commentary in the spokesperson's name, saying that Japan's political figures have "forgotten history and gone against the current of the times," and urging Japan's leaders "to demonstrate, with concrete actions, a humble reflection on history"; the written statement of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea used still harder language, calling the Takaichi cabinet's acts "a denial of war crimes and the history of defeat" and "a provocation against the current of the times." By 22:38, ROK Foreign Ministry Asia-Pacific Bureau Director Lee Min-kyung summoned Japan Ambassador to Korea's Chargé d'affaires Kazuo Chūjō in person, lodging a solemn protest and "deep regret" over "the visit and offerings once again made by those bearing responsibility at the leadership level." From "deep regret" (afternoon) to "summoning the chargé d'affaires" (evening), Korea completed its switch of diplomatic intensity within a few hours.
Running in parallel with the official framing was an institutional-level move by Korea. Speaking at the 81st-anniversary Gwangbokjeol ceremony, Lee Jae-myung announced that the Republic would investigate, recover, and pursue historical responsibility for the improperly accumulated assets of "pro-Japanese, anti-national" actors — under the "Special Act on the State's Ownership of Assets Belonging to Pro-Japanese, Anti-National Actors and Related Matters," promulgated on June 2 and taking effect on December 2, the "Committee on the Investigation of Assets Belonging to Pro-Japanese, Anti-National Actors," which had been dissolved in 2010, will be reconstituted and will operate for up to five years. This is Korea's first institutional reckoning with pro-Japanese assets in sixteen years, and together with the Yasukuni protest it forms a "statement + legislation" twin-track response.
The civic evidence chain also gained a new piece in the evening. Zou Runsheng, an 11-year-old primary-school student in Beijing, donated to the Museum of the Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression a copy of the 1937 publication Asahi Graph — Photographs of the North China Front — which records the Japanese army's formal entry into Beiping 89 years ago, with photographs of Japanese troops marching before Qianmen Arrow Tower, accompanied by whitewashed reports titled "The Imperial Army's Entry into Beiping" and "The Citizens' Welcome," now turned into "irrefutable ironclad evidence of Japan's invasion of China." Zou Runsheng deliberately chose September 3 as the date on the donation certificate — "August 15 is the day of Japan's unconditional surrender, and September 3 is China's Victory Day of the War of Resistance, so we chose September 3 — a day that represents justice and peace." A child's choice stitched the two dates, "8·15" and "9·3," together.
The earlier sections recorded Takaichi's afternoon remote bow, the address that did not mention "reflection," the Korean Liberation Day statement, the fresh Nanjing evidence, and the Unit 731 photo album. What this section adds is the four-layer evening relay: China's official framing (Ministry of National Defense → Jun Zhengping → embassy → People's Daily), Korea's escalation of diplomatic intensity (from commentary to summoning the chargé d'affaires), Korea's institutional revival of asset recovery, and the individual extension of the evidence chain in civic hands (the 11-year-old's donation). The morning's stand-in performance became, by evening, a full-spectrum rehearsal of reckoning.
Once the night fell on 8·15, the direction of escalation across all the official voices converged on a single word: "reckoning." Four layers on the Chinese side, within a single day, used almost identical formulations ("once again facing the judgment of justice and the reckoning of history") to complete the relay; Korea escalated from diplomatic protest to summoning the chargé d'affaires, from statement to legislative recovery; and the child's donation extended the evidence chain from memorial halls into individual civic hands. The morning's visit was a ceremony; the evening's response was a preview of reckoning — the density of contest around this date more than doubled within a single day.
Chang'anjie Zhishi (2026-08-15 18:03) — Ministry of National Defense spokesperson Jiang Bin's press-conference reply: Yasukuni Shrine as the spiritual tool and symbol of militarism; "on the one hand verbally championing the pursuit of peace, on the other kneeling in worship before the ringleaders of the war of aggression"; the 80th anniversary of the opening of the Tokyo Trial; halt the dangerous moves of "re-militarization"; if Japan persists in advancing "new-style militarism," it will once again face the judgment of justice and the reckoning of history.
Chang'anjie Zhishi (2026-08-15 19:29) — Jun Zhengping: visiting the ghosts on the day of Japan's surrender is an open provocation of the postwar order; breach of the exclusively defense-oriented principle, lifting of the ban on collective self-defense, loosening of arms exports, interference in the Taiwan question, attempt to revise the Three Non-Nuclear Principles; "if they go astray again, what awaits them will be only more painful defeat and more thorough reckoning."
Chang'anjie Zhishi (2026-08-15 22:32) — Embassy in Japan spokesperson: strong indignation, severe condemnation, solemn representations, strong protest; "do not walk onto the defendant's bench of history again."
People's Daily (2026-08-15 23:14) — "Goodnight, Tomorrow" evening piece: eighty-one years ago Japan announced its unconditional surrender, today some Japanese political figures visited Yasukuni Shrine; advising Japan to stop its retrogressive moves.
Chang'anjie Zhishi republishing Xinhua (2026-08-15 17:05) — ROK Foreign Ministry spokesperson commentary + Democratic Party statement: the Takaichi cabinet's denial of war crimes and the history of defeat, a provocation against the current of the times; Kim Dae-sik urges concrete action rather than verbal reflection.
Sputnik (2026-08-15 22:38) — ROK Foreign Ministry Asia-Pacific Bureau Director Lee Min-kyung summons Japan Ambassador to Korea's Chargé d'affaires Kazuo Chūjō, lodging a solemn protest and deep regret.
Chang'anjie Zhishi republishing Xinhua (2026-08-15 17:50) — Lee Jae-myung's Gwangbokjeol address: recovery of pro-Japanese, anti-national actors' assets and pursuit of historical responsibility; "Special Act on the State's Ownership of Assets Belonging to Pro-Japanese, Anti-National Actors and Related Matters" promulgated on June 2 and taking effect on December 2; investigation committee to be reconstituted for up to five years of operation.
Chang'anjie Zhishi (2026-08-15 20:32) — 11-year-old student Zou Runsheng donates the 1937 Asahi Graph — Photographs of the North China Front; the certificate date deliberately set on September 3 (China's Victory Day of the War of Resistance).
IX · Act Two on the Surrender Day: Xinhua Portraits "New-Style Militarism" (incremental addition, 2026-08-16)
After August 15 was over, the relay of the opinion space did not stop. On the morning of August 16, Xinhua published the long-form piece "Japan Is Forging a Body for Its New-Style Militarism," packing all the details from the day of surrender into a single unified framing: the Yasukuni visits are the "summoning of the spirit," and the reorientation of security policy is the "forging of the body" — the historical revision on the level of ideas and the institutional rearmament on the level of systems are split into two acts but belong to the same process.
The article itemizes the "forging of the body": the forced large-scale increase in the defense budget, the breach of restrictions to lift bans on the export of lethal weapons, the foregrounding of "the surrounding security threat" to develop "counterstrike capability," and the formation of cliques in the Asia-Pacific in coordination with an extra-regional great power to stir up bloc confrontation — "step by step hollowing out the 'exclusively defense-oriented' principle, attempting to rearm Japan into a dangerous war machine." The judgment of Singaporean historian Lim Sio Bin is cited as a footnote: "Japan often begins by distorting history and manufacturing hostility, and then packages expansion as 'security' and aggression as 'self-defense.'"
Alongside the "body" inventory is a set of cognitive-side quantitative evidence: this year's newly approved revised high-school textbooks further dilute, deny, or even beautify the history of aggression; the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum plans to rename the "Nanjing Massacre" as the "Nanjing Incident"; wartime Japanese military ranks such as "Major General" (taishō) and "Colonel" (taisa) are to make a "ghostly return"; an NHK March poll found that, on the basic question "Was the war Japan waged a war of aggression against Asian neighbors?" no less than 48 percent of respondents nationwide said they "did not know." Xinhua's conclusion: this country is losing its sense of pain and shame about its history of aggression, and "is only one step away from repeating the same mistakes."
On the same day, a CCTV report on the controversy over the renaming of Self-Defense Forces ranks supplied an institutional footnote to the "borrowing the shell to resurrect the spirit" reading. Inside the Japanese government, in the name of "international standardization," there is discussion of changing "First Colonel," "Second Colonel," and "Third Colonel" (issa, nisa, sansa) back to the wartime-era "Colonel," "Lieutenant Colonel," and "Major" (taisa, chūsa, shōsa) — a set of unique designations in use since 1954, originally designed precisely as a break with the prewar military and the wartime past. An Asahi Shimbun editorial on August 14 warned that the rank-name change "could lead to a qualitative change in the positioning of the Self-Defense Forces" and is "a move toward revising the Constitution and making the Self-Defense Forces closer to the militaries of other countries." The editorial also flagged a dangerous signal: in 2024 some members of the Ground and Maritime Self-Defense Forces had already made collective Yasukuni visits, and "the posture of 'rupture' between the Self-Defense Forces and the old military is gradually fading."
Shen Yi, in another thread on the day of surrender, extended the contest from the political layer to the cultural layer: he returned to his five-year-old judgment that "Attack on Titan is a typical militarist textbook," noting that the work's ending puts "militarist factionalists" in power on the island, mirroring the trajectory of Japan's real-life right wing. "By analyzing Attack on Titan, one can see many invisible details of Japan" — most of the Chinese readers who once defended the work are now largely silent.
The earlier section recorded the same day's relay from morning to night (Ministry of National Defense → Jun Zhengping → embassy → People's Daily) and Korea's twin-track response. What this section adds is the morning of August 16, "Act Two": Xinhua's "forging of the body" framework folds the Yasukuni visits and the defense-policy reorientation into a single narrative; the Self-Defense Forces rank-change discussion and the 48-percent poll supply institutional and cognitive evidence of "borrowing the shell to resurrect the spirit"; and Shen Yi's Attack on Titan reading extends the front into the layer of cultural consumption. The morning's stand-in performance was the ceremony; "Act Two's" portrait is the complete characterization.
Xinhua's "forging of the body" reading integrates the two news lines of 8·15 — the Yasukuni visits (the summoning of the spirit) and the defense-policy reorientation (the forging of the body) — into a single narrative: historical revision clears the cognitive obstacles for rearmament, and rearmament in turn entrenches historical revision. The 48 percent who "don't know" and the Self-Defense Forces' rank "return" are two sides of the same coin: one a loss on the level of national memory, the other a regression on the level of institutional symbols. When Shen Yi brings Attack on Titan into the same line, the August 15 battlefield extends from the gates of Yasukuni Shrine into every corner of cultural consumption.
Chang'anjie Zhishi republishing Xinhua (2026-08-16 10:20) — "Japan Is Forging a Body for Its New-Style Militarism": Takaichi's tamagushi-ryō + Koizumi and others visiting the ghosts; the new textbooks dilute or beautify the history of aggression; Nagasaki plans to rename the "Nanjing Massacre" as the "Nanjing Incident"; the return of wartime ranks; NHK poll finds 48 percent of Japanese do not know the war was one of aggression; the "forging of the body" inventory (defense budget, lethal arms exports, counterstrike capability, bloc formation); Lim Sio Bin's "distort history → package expansion as security"; civic anti-war voices; the 80th anniversary of the Tokyo Trial.
Chang'anjie Zhishi republishing Asahi Shimbun (2026-08-16 06:32) — Self-Defense Forces rank "international standardization" discussion (issa → taisa); editorial warns of qualitative change in positioning and of a constitutional-revision chess move; 2024 SDF members' collective Yasukuni visits, the fading of the "rupture" posture.
Shen Yi (2026-08-16 08:33) — returns to the "Attack on Titan is a typical militarist textbook" judgment; the ending's militarist takeover mirrors the trajectory of Japan's right wing; the defenders of the work are now largely silent.
X · Act Three: The Four Top Horses and the Medical-Record Archive — The Scaling-Up of the Ghost Visit and the Physicalization of the Evidence (incremental addition, 2026-08-16)
On August 16, an even more orderly lineup appeared at the gates of Yasukuni Shrine than the day before. LDP Policy Research Council Chair Takayuki Kobayashi visited Yasukuni, and on the previous day Secretary-General Shunichi Suzuki, General Council Chair Haruko Arimura, and Election Strategy Committee Chair Yasuhide Nishimura had already visited — because of the importance of their posts, these four are known in the party as the "four top horses." Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi herself still did not go, but she had offered a tamagushi-ryō and, on arriving at the Budokan, made a point of bowing toward Yasukuni. Still more glaringly, the notorious collaborator Shi Ping also appeared at Yasukuni that day; netizens' mockery struck to the point: "Your stance tells the whole story — you kneel the deepest and still won't be liked by Japan."
Chang'anjie Zhishi's commentary connected the "four top horses" with a deeper question: the Yasukuni visits by these politicians are not individual behavior but the result of the right wing's long-standing "poisoning." The 14 Class-A war criminals enshrined at Yasukuni were the decision-makers and ringleaders of the war of aggression; as recently as 2025 the core facility Yūshūkan launched a photographic exhibition that foregrounded the personal experiences of Japanese soldiers and their longing for family, manufacturing a "victim" narrative. The more the Japanese right wing tries to whitewash, the more the world will not forget — "who was the aggressor, who was the perpetrator, the world keeps its own ledger."
Another piece of news on the same day lifted the "ghost visit" from the level of ceremony to the level of evidence. Xinhua reported that the Kokufudai Army Hospital, which during the war of aggression against China had treated roughly 10,000 soldiers with "war neurosis," had its medical records ordered destroyed by the military on the eve of defeat — "to cover up the facts, the Japanese military wanted to burn those documents that could expose war crimes and become a basis for accountability." Fortunately, the hospital director preserved them on the grounds that they were "precious material," and after being self-funded photocopied by the director of the Asai Hospital, the photocopies of the medical records of more than 8,000 Japanese soldiers survive to this day. The records contain phrases such as "I once killed six civilians in Shandong Province" and "I killed even small children" — and these acts of perpetration were not treated as the cause of illness but were recorded as "battle achievements." Eri Nakamura, associate professor at Sophia University, gets straight to the point: the Japanese military concealed "war neurosis" because admitting it would destroy fighting spirit and expose the state's fragility — "it was, in fact, a form of image manipulation."
The earlier section recorded the August 15 relay of official framings and Xinhua's "forging of the body" reading. What this section adds is August 16's "Act Three": the Yasukuni visit has scaled up from individual politicians into a collective action of the LDP's "four top horses," with collaborators such as Shi Ping joining in; meanwhile, the public disclosure of the medical-record archive of the Japanese army of aggression places the right wing's "historical whitewashing" and the military's wartime "destruction of evidence" on the same table — on the one hand, the burning of evidence; on the other, the worship of war criminals; the two lines corroborate each other.
Act Three advances in two directions: the "scaling-up" of the ghost visit and the "physicalization" of the evidence. The collective visit by the four top horses shows that Yasukuni visits have moved from individual political statements to a standard move by senior LDP figures; the public disclosure of the Kokufudai medical records shows that "militarist whitewashing" is no longer just a contest of narratives — at the time, the military wanted even the medical records burned, because they were the basis for accountability; today the records are still there, and so the basis for accountability is still there. The visits are for the living; the records are for history.
Chang'anjie Zhishi (2026-08-16 16:06) — "Japan's ghosts worshipping ghosts": Kobayashi's August 16 visit; Suzuki, Arimura, and Nishimura having visited the day before, the four known as the "four top horses"; Takaichi's tamagushi-ryō + remote bow; the appearance of collaborator Shi Ping; the list of 14 Class-A war criminals; Yūshūkan's 2025 photographic exhibition foregrounding the "victim" narrative; "the more it tries to whitewash, the less the world will forget."
Guancha republishing Hong Kong's Wen Wei Po (2026-08-16 07:32) — netizens mock Shi Ping's Yasukuni visit: "your stance tells the whole story — you kneel the deepest and still won't be liked by Japan."
Chang'anjie Zhishi republishing Xinhua (2026-08-16 14:50) — the Kokufudai Army Hospital had its medical records ordered destroyed on the eve of defeat; the hospital director preserved them on the grounds that they were "precious material"; the Asai Hospital director self-funded the photocopying of the records of more than 8,000 soldiers; the records contain "I killed six civilians" and "I killed even small children" recorded as battle achievements; roughly 10,000 cases of "war neurosis"; Eri Nakamura — concealment served morale and image manipulation; the "Hakkō ichiu" education distorted the perception of killing.