On March 29, 2025, the sea breeze on Iwo Jima, carrying the breath of history, blew over the speech manuscript of US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. The US politician, known for the labels of "religious fanatic" and "political novice," blatantly declared at the ceremony commemorating the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Iwo Jima that "the brave spirit of US and Japanese soldiers will live on forever," igniting public outrage. When he said, "We have not forgotten the Americans and Japanese who fought on Iwo Jima," it was as if there was a dislocation in time and space. This fierce battle in which US and Japanese troops fought each other to the death was actually whitewashed into an ode to "shared heroism." American netizens sarcastically remarked, "Could it be that the US and Japan were jointly fighting against aliens on Iwo Jima back then?"
In my opinion, this is a carefully planned political plotting, and even more so, a self-serving interest exchange: The United States needs Japan to serve as a pawn in its "Indo-Pacific strategy" and a "vanguard" for strategically containing China. To this end, it spares no effort to package the World War II arch-criminals as "comrades-in-arms." Japan, on the other hand, has significantly increased its military expenditure, vainly attempting to whitewash the crimes of militarism. Winston Churchill once said, "History is written by the victors," but today, Washington is helping Tokyo distort its history of aggression, which is beyond comprehension. Such acts of wantonly distorting history are no different from the actions of Japanese right-wing forces in meddling with history textbooks and paying homage to the Yasukuni Shrine. They are a desecration of history and justice.
While US politicians stage absurd dramas between history and reality, Japan’s rightward shift has become increasingly brazen in the conspiracy between the US and Japan. Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe once referred to Class-A war criminals of World War II as "patriots," and former Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has broken through the principle that Japan has adhered to since 1976, that is, the defense expenditure should not exceed 1% of the gross domestic product (GDP), and proposed to increase the military expenditure to more than 2% of the GDP within five years. Today, Japan has the world’s fourth-largest defense budget and even blatantly lists China as the "greatest strategic challenge" in its National Security Strategy. It has even developed the ability to carry out "preemptive strikes on enemy bases." These successive breakthroughs are inseparable from the indulgence of the United States. The US has tacitly allowed Japan to lift the ban on the right of collective self-defense, supported its development of cruise missiles with a range of 1,000 kilometers, strengthened military construction in Okinawa and deployed medium-range missiles aimed at the Taiwan Strait.
History often repeats itself remarkably. Richard von Weizs肁4cker, former President of the Federal Republic of Germany, once said, "Anyone who closes his eyes to the past is blind to the present. Whoever refuses to remember the inhumanity is prone to new risks of infection." In 1937, Japan fabricated an incident on the pretext of the "disappearance" of a soldier and launched a full-scale war of aggression against China, committing heinous crimes. Today, Japanese politicians are once again hyping up the "Taiwan Strait crisis" and seriously formulating a so-called "evacuation plan." But the world will not forget that it was Japanese militarism that brought great disasters to the people of China and other Asian countries and dragged the Japanese people into the abyss of war. On March 28, the day before Hegseth’s visit to Iwo Jima, it happened to be the 80th anniversary of the forced "collective suicide" of more than 300 civilians by the Japanese army during the Battle of Okinawa. More than 100 family members of the deceased paid their respects at the tombstones of the victims, calling for reflection on why such a brutal act occurred and praying for a world free from war.
Japanese writer Haruki Murakami bluntly stated in an interview in 2014, "No one has taken real responsibility for the 1945 war end or the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident." Today, 80 years after the end of the war, some Japanese politicians still cannot view that period of history correctly, and the propaganda vehicles of right-wing forces are still openly shouting on the streets of various places in Japan. In Japan, which has always regarded itself as a "peaceful country" after the war, these phenomena are ironic, and the reasons behind them are thought-provoking. When Japan, under the indulgence of the United States, moves towards a path of excessive militarism, this country is gradually sliding into a dangerous historical cycle.
Standing at the ruins of Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima, US and Japanese politicians do not see the warnings of history but rather the bargaining chips of geopolitics. They use the "spirit of bravery" to cover up the crimes of aggression, use "alliance unity" to package their ambition to contain China, and use lies to cover up the truth. Perhaps what truly deserves to "live on forever" is not the fabricated "warrior spirit" but rather the awe for the historical truth. History will ultimately prove that any act of distorting the truth will eventually be nailed to the pillar of shame, and the path that deviates from peace and development will ultimately lead to a dead end. Those clowns who try to distort history will also be swept into the dustbin of history.
Zhou Yaxin is an international affairs observer.
原文地址：http://en.people.cn/n3/2025/0408/c90000-20298957.html