‘Neo-militarism’: Why Beijing sees Japan reviving a prewar trajectory

At this year’s Shangri-La Dialogue, Japanese Defence Minister Shinjiro Koizumi dismissed accusations from China that Japan is sliding into “new militarism” (新军国主义), arguing that a country without nuclear weapons or strategic bombers should not be given such a label. 

The line landed well in Singapore and beyond, but Koizumi’s “new militarism” wording also exposed a basic misreading: Beijing’s recent charge of Japan’s remilitarisation is not really about a “new” form of militarism in the abstract — it is actually about what Chinese officials now call “neo‑militarism” — a label rooted in fears that postwar Japan is structurally drifting back toward elements of its pre‑1945 statehood, or a pre‑war state restoration inside a post‑war shell. 

Such concerns about a possible restoration of elements of Japan’s prewar state are not confined to China. Criticism of this trajectory has a long history within Japan itself, where public opinion and social movements have repeatedly voiced apprehension about the country’s security and constitutional evolution.

That is why “neo‑militarism” is a better rendering than “new militarism” — and it has effectively become the standard translation in Chinese official discourse: the prefix “neo-” preserves what Beijing most wants to emphasise: not novelty, but “revival” through transformation.

From ‘reviving militarism’ to ‘neo-militarism’

China’s sensitivity to Japanese remilitarisation did not begin with the Xi Jinping administration, nor with Takaichi Sanae’s premiership. Since the postwar era, Beijing has repeatedly warned against “reviving militarism” and against the “ghosts of militarism” returning to haunt Asia. Even during the so‑called “honeymoon” in Sino‑Japanese relations in the 1980s, leaders who were widely regarded as friendly toward Japan, such as Hu Yaobang, also paired outreach with anxiety over history textbook controversies and Yasukuni Shrine visits. These were viewed as signs that militarism had never been fully delegitimised.

During the Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao era (1989-2012), the language sharpened and became more closely linked to contemporary policies and tense Sino-Japanese relations. Chinese leaders praised Japan’s postwar pacifism but warned that constitutional reinterpretation (or revision), rightist historical whitewashing, provocations in bilateral territorial disputes and moves beyond “exclusively defensive defence” risked reopening the path that the defeat of 1945 was meant to close, urging the prevention of any “revival of Japanese militarism” and cast the Cairo Declaration, the Potsdam Proclamation and the Tokyo Trial as the legal and moral pillars of the post-WWII world order.

From Beijing’s standpoint, the seeds of neo‑militarism were planted no later than Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo’s second term. The state secrecy law of 2013, the shift on collective self‑defence, the relaxation of the “Three principles on Arms Exports”, and the adoption of the “Legislation for Peace and Security” are all seen as steps away from the post-war system. The Sanae Takaichi cabinet, by pushing further on lethal weapons exports, intelligence reorganisation, debate over the “Three Non‑nuclear Principles”, Japan’s more active role in the South China Sea disputes, and a more explicit linkage between Japan’s security and a Taiwan contingency, is viewed as accelerating an existing trajectory rather than charting a new course.

Seen in that light, China’s current reference of Japan’s neo-militarism is less a radical break than an updated configuration of longstanding militarist traditions under post‑war conditions. The underlying anxiety — that Japan never fully severed itself from militarist patterns of thought and power — remains constant. What has changed is the vocabulary: neo‑militarism bundles this older concern together with concrete developments.

Why China calls it ‘neo-militarism’

The structural logic behind the term “neo‑militarism” can be summarised in two moves.

First, Chinese narratives stress that Japan’s remilitarisation is neither an unprecedented phenomenon nor a simple replay of the pre-1945 history. Prewar militarism was driven from below: an army and navy with independent command authority, service ministers who could topple cabinets, and junior officers capable of dragging the state into conflict through assassinations and fait accomplis. By contrast, contemporary Japan remains under civilian control, with competitive elections and no military junta. 

A recent commentary in the Chinese Communist Party’s leading theoretical journal, Qiushi, argues that neo-militarism reshapes the classic pre‑war triangle of “emperor–military–zaibatsu (wealthy clique)” into a contemporary coalition of “right‑wing politicians, security bureaucrats and defence‑industrial capital”, using ostensibly democratic procedures — parliamentary legislation, cabinet decisions, security strategy documents — to push through rearmament and constitutional revision. In this view, the will to militarism has shifted from relying on raw military coercion to operating through legalised and bureaucratised channels, which is precisely what makes it “neo‑” rather than simply new.

In this sense, the mechanism of “militarisation” has changed. Still, its direction — back toward a “war‑capable state” with regional ambitions — looks disturbingly familiar to the Chinese, which is reminiscent of the “century of humiliation”, especially the Second Sino-Japanese War (known as the “Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression” in China). 

Echoes of the past

Thus, in China’s perception, an upcoming Japanese National Intelligence Bureau implicitly likened to the pre‑1945 Gestapo-like Special Higher Police (Tokkō), and Takaichi’s “survival-threatening situation” remark on Taiwan in November 2025 are usually compared to the pretexts of Imperial Japan’s invasion of China during the 1930s-40s (such as the Mukden incident in 1931).

When Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian responded to Koizumi’s Shangri-La Dialogue speech with historical analogies: referring to the Tokyo Trial’s 80th anniversary, recalling the binding force China sees in Cairo and Potsdam, pointing to Japan’s postwar constitutional limits, and then contrasting them with Japan’s current record‑high budgets and broadened military buildup, for Beijing, this is evidence of neo‑militarism — a process by which a defeated Japan quietly reacquires the state capacities that were supposed to be dismantled. 

From this perspective, Koizumi’s insistence that Japan cannot be militarist because it lacks nuclear weapons and strategic bombers looks like a strawman. China is not equating Japan with present‑day nuclear powers; it is actually arguing that the structural direction of Japan’s security reform trajectory — from self‑restraint back toward a war‑capable state — is alarmingly familiar.

Hearing the accusation in its own terms

If Japan sincerely wants to manage China’s “neo-militarism” narrative, the first step is to hear the accusation in its own terms. The neo‑ versus new‑militarism debate is, in many ways, a security discourse that is lost in translation.

China’s core claim is that Japan has never fully “de‑militarised its memory” and is now using post‑war languages to re‑militarise its state. Neo‑militarism in Chinese usage does not solely mean “Japan is arming up”; it means Japan is seen as using postwar languages, such as “normalisation”, “deterrence”, “alliance solidarity” and “economic security” — to restore elements of a prewar trajectory. 

Thus, any security reforms that look technocratic in Japan — changes to legal categories, new command structures, even rank titles — can be interpreted very differently from a Chinese perspective, when layered onto a long history of unresolved memory and contested responsibility.

None of this means that Tokyo must accept Beijing’s narrative. But treating neo-militarism as nothing more than a weapon of China’s “cognitive warfare” or “nationalist mobilisation” misses an important point. For Chinese policymakers, scholars and much of the public, the concern is deeply historical and genuinely felt.

The starting point for any serious dialogue is to understand, with precision, what the other side is actually saying. As long as Japan keeps rebutting “new militarism” while China warns about “neo‑militarism”, the cognitive gaps will remain significant. In that three-letter difference lies great implications that both sides — and the region — cannot afford to keep mistranslating. Until the two regional great powers agree on what exactly is being alleged, debates over Japan’s security trajectory will continue to generate more heat than light.

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