Learning the lessons of history

The setback suffered by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's Liberal Democratic Party in Sunday's local election should be a warning to Japanese politicians trying to change the country's pacifist Constitution and expand the military's role. The LDP lost the vote to fill the open governor's post in Shiga prefecture in western Japan, which shows Abe's move to build a full-fledged military is against Japanese voters' wishes.

Abe's rightist policies have already strained Japan's relations with its neighbors, such as China and the Republic of Korea, so it's time he changed his mindset.

On July 7, Chinese President Xi Jinping visited the Marco Polo Bridge, setting an example of remembering some of the darkest war crimes of the past century. The Marco Polo Bridge Incident (July 7, 1937) marks the beginning of China's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression.

We are living in a world that is rapidly becoming more dangerous. New crises are erupting in the Gaza Strip and Iraq, and Ukraine and Northeast Asia. Yet this is also a season of anniversaries. On June 6, the leaders of Europe and the United States gathered in Normandy to commemorate the 70th anniversary of D-Day, which was the beginning of the liberation of Western Europe by the Allies. President Xi's visit to the Marco Polo Bridge was of comparable importance.

It is typical of Western, especially American, myopia that no major leaders came to share the Marco Polo Bridge commemoration. Yet more than 16 million Chinese died in the eight-year War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression which started more than two years before Nazi Germany invaded Poland on Sept 1, 1939 - the date universally, but wrongly, regarded in the West as the start of World War II.