Who’s afraid of Japanese neo-militarism? Nobody- More countries see a stronger Japan not as a danger, but a counterweight to China’s actions and growing U.S. untrustworthiness.

You can pretty much assume that any Reddit poster who brings up Japanese “militarism” on the reg is ~~Chinese~~ a wolf-warrior account.

They don’t seem to be able to differentiate domestically effective propaganda from stuff people with access to a free press might believe.

Faulting Japanese war denial has some currency outside of China, but not the plainly stupid narrative that Japan is somehow itching to pick fights with its very highly developed neighbors.

Edit: “remilitarization” is not “militarism.” See my other comment below.

Japanese militarism is not a thing and even S.Koreans would laugh at the notion of Japan invading a neighbour at this point. Any increase in military spending is a direct result of China’s actions on the international stage, and they know it.

well I m an european guy living in Japan for a very long time : I m horrified how little Japanese people know the history of their own country and so in a way it is worrisome

Japanese should feel threatened. The U.S. is just using Japan to be blown up by China first.

Who the fk trusts the US anyway?

Older generations living in Southeast Asia are very wary of Japan building up their forces, due to WWII.

This is despite China still having a much much larger military than Japan, and China beefing with part of Southeast Asia for territories.

No qualms about China building up its forces but yes, let’s be wary of an invasion from Japan.

This post answered the question already

There is nothing worrisome . China wants to bully everyone around her , japan has to prevent getting bullied by china . How you do it ? With military muscle . Of course Japanese (government ) is well aware of it being between a rock and a hard place . America has become an unreliable ally – and more an occupational power than a friend . But a lot of military tech is nicely integrated with US defense and weapon systems . But japan is doing everything it can to wean itself off America but without burning bridges and risking chaos . It’s not so easy

The Japanese military budget is mostly spent on prepaying for weapons that U.S. promises but never delivers. The so called missile defense system will be budget and spending only with no delivery of any systems.
And nobody wants to join the defense force and fight for Japan if Japan is ever invaded so even with an abundance of weapons in warehouses, there is nobody to use them to actually do the defending let alone invading.

This militarized and stronger Japan talk is a fantasy that only uneducated and uninformed otakus can get excited about and it is used purely as a propaganda for someone’s agenda.

The USA trying to maintain control over east asia just isn’t tenable.   

Something I see mentioned is that back when the TPP trade deal was proposed, Abe was dealing with China to give the USA a bit of a raw deal, and this justifies a US presence out of fear that Japan would throw in with China fully.   I’m not sure there is much merit to that.

So I’d roll the dice and let Japan go its own way again after 80 years of semi-soft US oversight.  Let our Asian friends settle who is top dog in east asia.

I m not from Japan but would really really want a militarily strong Japan against the spread of authoritarianism in the world.

Those who worried about “militarism” do not realize the world is completely different now. We have nuclear weapons, heavily interdependent trades, United Nations etc. Also Japan is democratic now with an aging population. Japan simply has no will or the conditions to “invade” any country at all.

Lots of South East Asia countries and Taiwan, who were WW2 victims, are actually working very closely with Japan now, with even military cooperations. Because they know the modern threats of expansionalism is actually coming from Russia and China.

Most people know Russia is invading Ukraine with China, N Korea, and Iran helps. But China also went back on its own promise of non-militarization of South China Sea, making artificial islands against international laws and occupied the economic zones of most South East Asian countries. China also do airspace incursion against Taiwan almost every month.

Japan is the only country in the world that dare to say that it will intervene in Taiwan invasion. We need more countries in the world to stand up and respect the free will of people born in their lands, be that Ukraine, Taiwan, or anywhere else, or the world will be consumed by authoritarianism, and the exploition and censorship it brings with it.

“A counterweight to US untrustworthiness”? Hilarious. 

MIC propaganda is classic.

Japan hasn’t rebuilt itself yet.

The specific militarism that drove Japan into the Second World War is unlikely to return in the same form, because it depended on a historically particular convergence of emperor-centered ideology, imperial ambition, military independence from civilian control, resource desperation, and strategic miscalculation. However, that does not mean Japan is immune to militarist revival. A future resurgence would likely be shaped around constitutional reinterpretation, expanded military capacity, nationalist education, historical revisionism, and the framing of regional insecurity as a justification for remilitarization.

how is Japanese military culture these days? does it have something close to the militarism of the 1930s?

Japan rearming should be a reason to worry. They have historically not treated their neighbors well.

When you have China & Russia as your neighbors, you’d be crazy to not have a proper military.

作为一名中国人，我要告诉大家真相
当年中国侵略了日本，为了打败中国，美国不得已对日本投下了两颗原子弹。
日本是受害者，中国是侵略者，美国是救世主！！！