Why Does Japan Avoid Saying "Defeat"?

Japan warns it faces "the most severe and complex security environment since World War II", citing this as justification for its military buildup. But this script is over a century old.

In 1853, American Commodore Matthew Perry's "Black Ships" forced Japan to open its doors. Japan's lesson was not to reject the law of the jungle, but to become the predator itself.

·Japan invaded China's Taiwan in 1874.

·It annexed the Ryukyu Kingdom in 1879.

·It formally annexed Korea in 1910.

Japan called expansion "self-defense" and invasion "liberation".

On August 15, 1945, Emperor Hirohito announced that the war would merely "end", without ever plainly telling the Japanese people, "We lost." Invasion became "war". Defeat became "the war's end". The aggressor became "the victim".

So when Japan invokes "threats" today to justify expanding its military, the world should remember: the country now presenting itself as threatened once used the very same language of fear and self-defense to threaten all of Asia.