Close behind is the most ferocious and brutal demon: military expansion. Takaichi's calls for constitutional revision are not isolated slogans, but a prelude to Japan's military buildup.

by Gong Rong

In ancient Greek mythology, Pandora pried open a box given by Zeus, unleashing the demons of greed, war, and falsehood upon humanity, with only hope trapped forever at the bottom.

Today, in 21st-century East Asia, Japanese Prime Minister and right-wing politician Sanae Takaichi, with her obstinacy and political ambition, has become the "Pandora" of the new age.

Emboldened by her victory in the 2026 Japanese House of Representatives election, she may personally pry open Japan's long-sealed "Pandora's box" and release three demons: constitutional revision, military expansion, and historical distortion.

These demons will break the seal of postwar peace, cross the legal red line of the victory against fascism, turn Japan's rightward shift into a substantive threat, and pose a grave danger of resurgent Japanese militarism for the international community. Every step she takes to break free from the constraints of the postwar order pushes regional peace toward an unknown and perilous edge.

The first demon Takaichi will unleash is constitutional revision, directly targeting Article 9 of Japan's peace constitution.

Article 9 of the 1947 peace constitution places Japan within a peaceful institutional framework through the ironclad provisions of a permanent renunciation of war and the maintenance of no regular military forces. It also forms a key part of the postwar international order established by the Cairo Declaration, the Potsdam Proclamation, and the Japanese Instrument of Surrender. In other words, Japan's constitution is not merely a domestic matter.

Since entering politics, Takaichi has made repealing this clause her ultimate goal. During the recent election, she clamored for putting the Japan Self-Defense Forces (JSDF) in the constitution and defining them as a "formal military organization," openly calling on voters to allow her to revise the constitution.

Yet this seemingly simple legal amendment would completely negate the core spirit of the peace constitution. Once the JSDF gains military status in the constitution, Japan will shift fundamentally from "exclusive defense" to full militarization. A two-thirds majority in the Diet is the key to breaking the seal. The escape of this demon will directly trample on the victory against fascism of last century and remove a vital institutional bulwark for peace in postwar East Asia.

Close behind is the most ferocious and brutal demon: military expansion. Takaichi's calls for constitutional revision are not isolated slogans, but a prelude to Japan's military buildup.

Initiated by Takaichi and Japanese right-wing forces, Japan's military expansion has manifested in an alarming set of figures and actions: its defense budget for fiscal year 2026 has soared to 9.04 trillion yen (about 58.9 billion U.S. dollars), marking 14 consecutive years of growth. It is developing offensive missiles with ranges exceeding 1,000 km and establishing a "Space Operations Group" to extend its military reach into outer space. Finally, the Japanese military is relaxing restrictions on weapons exports, densely deploying missiles in the southwestern islands, and building a "forward deterrence system" targeting neighboring countries.

The Takaichi government has also openly tested the waters for revising the Three Non-Nuclear Principles, crossing a dangerous red line. Japan's re-militarization is completely deviating from its claimed purpose of self-defense and risks fueling an arms race across the Asia-Pacific.

A third demon would be historical revisionism and falsehood, the most malicious of all. It distorts historical truth and serves as the ideological breeding ground for constitutional revision and military expansion.

Takaichi's right-wing orientation has been evident since the first day she entered politics: More than 30 years ago, she publicly challenged then Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama, questioning "on what grounds Japan's war of aggression is deemed wrong." In the decades after, she has been a frequent visitor to the Yasukuni war shrine and openly denied Japan's crimes, such as the Nanjing Massacre and the forced recruitment of comfort women. She even wrote prefaces for books glorifying Adolf Hitler and has grown ties with neo-Nazi forces.

The horror of this demon of falsehood lies in its attempt to erase the scars of history: When a nation refuses to face up to its wartime crimes and yet wields military might, it undermines regional mutual trust and betrays the memory of justice and peace. Shrouded in the lie of normalizing the nation, Takaichi's sinister agenda of reviving militarism cannot be concealed.

These three demons do not operate in isolation but are deeply intertwined. Historical revisionism provides the intellectual basis for constitutional revision and military expansion, constitutional revision confers "legitimacy" for a military buildup, and military expansion turns a dangerous attempt to revise history into reality.

Takaichi has even linked the Taiwan question to Japan's right of collective self-defense, claiming that a Taiwan contingency threatens Japan's survival, using China's internal affairs as a pretext for its military expansion.

As the three demons tear apart the seal of peace, Asian countries may once again face a repeat of Japanese aggression.

Pandora opened the box out of ignorance and recklessness; Takaichi's attempt to pry open Japan's "Pandora's box" is deliberate, long-premeditated.

Her radicalism is not an isolated, impulsive move, but the inevitable result of decades of rightward drift in Japanese politics and the resurgence of right-wing forces.

Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's incremental constitutional revision and lifting of the ban on collective self-defense paved the way for the right-wing to emerge stronger than ever. The United States has long connived with Japan to loosen military restrictions to advance its own Asia-Pacific strategy. Inside Japan, as the generation that experienced the war passes away, the force for peace has weakened, and the military-industrial complex and right-wing populism have shifted to the fore. Takaichi has seized this opportunity and, through the House of Representatives election, placed her personal political ambitions above regional peace, pushing Japan deep into the abyss of a radical rightward shift.

In mythology, hope was ultimately kept inside "Pandora's box." Today, however, there is hope for East Asia as long as the international community acts collectively.

China has firmly opposed the revival of Japanese militarism and worked together with Russia and other countries to defend the postwar international order. Insightful people within Japan have protested Takaichi's push for constitutional revision and military expansion. Peace-loving forces across Asia and the rest of the world are sounding the alarm.

These beams of hope are bright enough to pierce the darkness. Only when the international community remains vigilant and collectively urges Japan's right-wing to face history squarely and halt constitutional revision and military expansion can the peace constitution once again become Japan's red line. Only then can there be hope for peace in the Asia-Pacific, rather than being forever trapped at the bottom of "Pandora's box."

Editor's note: The author is a commentator on international affairs.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of Xinhua News Agency.