However, China has an evolving and little understood narrative of Japanese history, from which an additional message can also be discerned. Recent Chinese sources build on 40 years of citing historical memory to deny Japan the right to become a normal power, a narrative increasingly open about Sinocentric designs.
In the past few months, we find growing questioning of Japan’s sovereignty over Okinawa (the Ryukyus) and insistence that the agreements to end World War II oblige Japan to forego development of its armed forces. General Secretary Xi Jinping, speaking on September 3 at the 80th anniversary victory celebration, not only commemorated the “War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression” but, as Chinese articles explained, linked this to the present, as reflected in incessant warnings against Japan’s dangerous path of “remilitarization.”
