Japan should repent its past before trying to become normal nation

If there was still any doubt over Japan's increasing strategic regional ambitions, the recent activities of its biggest warship Izumo have just laid that to rest. Last week, the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Forces helicopter destroyer sailed near China's Nine-Dash Line in the South China Sea with military officials from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations member states on board as guests. And before that, in mid June, the Izumo joined the USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier in the South China Sea for a three-day exercise.

Both incidents were interpreted by the international community as Japan's open defiance of China's so-called assertiveness in the waters. In fact, as soon as Japan announced that its biggest warship will disembark on a voyage to the South China Sea in May, its contentious military maneuverings were seen more as a provocation to China than deterrence against the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, as was claimed by Japanese officials.

In recent years, with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe clinging to his ultra-right, revisionist thinking, Tokyo has been constantly pushing the boundaries prescribed by its pacifist Constitution and creating a bigger role for its Self-Defense Forces to play both at home and abroad. Abe has even said he would amend the Constitution's war-renouncing Article 9 by 2020 so that the SDF is officially recognized as Japan's military.