Dont overlook Sinocentrism: Chinas historical memory and Japan

This article, first published by Pacific Forum, is republished with permission.

China’s response to Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s November 7, 2025, remarks to the Diet that a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan could arise in a “Taiwan contingency” has largely been framed as a warning to step back as China chooses to coerce Taiwan.

However, China has an evolving and little understood narrative of Japanese history, from which an additional message can also be discerned. Recent Chinese sources build on 40 years of citing historical memory to deny Japan the right to become a normal power, a narrative increasingly open about Sinocentric designs.

In the past few months, we find growingquestioning of Japan’s sovereigntyover Okinawa (the Ryukyus) and insistence that the agreements to end World War II oblige Japan to forego development of its armed forces. General Secretary Xi Jinping,speakingon September 3 at the 80^thanniversary victory celebration, not only commemorated the “War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression” but, asChinese articlesexplained, linked this to the present, as reflected in incessant warnings against Japan’s dangerous path of “remilitarization.”

Demonization of Japan’s history is less about future peace, however, than it is about putting Japan into China’s sphere of control. Their wielding of historical critiques to legitimize aggressive ambitions is pervasive.

Even as China welcomed Japanese investment and development assistance, its internal (neibu) publications by 1988 were warning that Japan had forfeited the right to become a political or military great power. In the mid-1990s the patriotic education campaign went further in disparaging Japan as unable to separate itself from past imperialist aggression. In 2003 leaders countenanced a brief period of “new thinking” toward Japan, separating the postwar from the past, but that was swiftly silenced. Demands for sovereignty over the Senkaku (what the Chinese call Diaoyu) Islands in the 2010s further roused the public over historical issues.

Under Xi Jinping historical messaging has acquired a more incessant and threatening tone. International law has been more clearly subordinated to historical justifications. This drew particular attention in the case of the South China Sea in 2016 when the Permanent Court of Arbitrationrulingwas ridiculed in Beijing. Three themes stand out in coverage of Japan.

First, as in the case ofcritiques of South Korea, there is a widespread narrative of “ingratitude” regarding benevolent treatment during China’s imperial times with the implication that rejoining this harmonious sphere would be in Japan’s interest, and that its record of “betraying” China’s goodwill must be ended.

Second, in China’s “century of humiliation” Japan’s supposed malevolence long predated seizure of Northeast China in 1931 and the war that spread from 1937. Annexing the Ryukyus in 1879 and seizing Taiwan in 1895, along with claiming the Diaoyu Islands were unjust behavior. If Japan has no right to interfere over Taiwan, its rights over the Ryukyus remain unclear too.

Third, under the terms of the agreements to end World War II, the legitimacy of Japan’s Self-Defense Forces is put in doubt. This is part of a three-fold criticism: 1) containment is the nature of Japan’s alliance with the United States; 2) remilitarization impugns the motives of Japan’s military build-up, as if it were a return to previous aggression; and 3) the international order established in 1945 requires Japan to remain disarmed.

In this reasoning, Japan is undermining a reviving harmonious regional order, plotting to reassert its own regional hegemony, and destabilizing the status quo that has kept the peace.

Sinocentrism has three historically rooted dimensions, all of which draw Japan into the picture.

They are: 1) reunification, asserting sovereignty, for which Japan is an obstacle as well as the initial cause of China’s losses; 2) civilizational centrality, insisting that appealing to universal values betrays the legacy of the East, while playing the “history card” to oblige Japan to accept China’s cultural hegemony; and 3) geopolitical hegemony, breaking up the US-Japan alliance and discrediting Japan’s “free and open Indo-Pacific” initiative in favor of China taking control of the first island chain, far more than just guaranteeing it access.

Beijing is testing the pathway toward these Sinocentric ambitions more with Japan than with South Korea or Russia, but they are in its crosshairs too. Historical coverage of them has laid the groundwork for more assertive behavior, but the strategic partnership with Russia and the divisive stand-off on the Korean Peninsula warrant more caution. Japan serves as a more opportunistic target, given its wartime atrocities, theoffensive remarksmade by some officials, and its more strategic role as what Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone called an “unsinkable aircraft carrier in the Pacific.” Aircraft carriers may no longer be regarded as so invulnerable.

Playing the history card for diplomatic advantage is often implemented by seizing on insufficient apologies from Japan and insensitive justifications of past, egregious Japanese conduct.

The historical narrative is much more. It serves as a precursor of reconstructing a regional order exclusive of the United States. To that end Japan stands on the front line, most vulnerable for its past and most critical for China’s regional ambitions. Questioning its sovereignty over Okinawa and right to exert power in the emerging international order is made easier by arguments about its past. Takaichi’s candor served as pretext for more assertive use of historical memory. Even if no longer effective in arousing Japanese guilt or gaining a diplomatic edge, the historical rhetoric conveys a worldview for constructing a region under China’s domination.

We can find repeated examples of China taking offense at foreign leaders who stand in the way of a China-centered sphere of control. Mikhail Gorbachev was one, despite yielding on Soviet encroachments on China’s borders. Not only did he undermine communist ideology, his “new thinking” welcomed a European community and left divisive spheres in doubt. In hisVladivostok speechand elsewhere, he never recognized China’s autonomous sphere.

The “pivot to Asia” under Barack Obama drew aharsh responsetoo, followed by Xi’s appeal for a “new typeof great power relations,” acceding to a Chinese sphere on one side of the Pacific. South Korean leaders, notably former President Lee Myung-bak (2008-13),defiedrising demands to accept a “balance” between the Chinese and US spheres. Thus, Shinzo Abe’s “Indo-Pacific” focus, which former President Biden developed into a framework, crossed the red line of a Sinocentric worldview.

In response to the LDP’s and Takaichi’s overwhelming success in the Lower House elections of February 8, a Chinese spokespersonwarnedthat “the lessons of history are still fresh in memory and should not be left behind,” and that “those running the Japanese government [should] take seriously rather than brush aside the concerns of the international community, follow the path of peaceful development rather than return to militarism.”

The spokesperson added: “Our message is very clear: The Chinese people remain unwavering in our determination to safeguard the nation’s core interests, defend the outcomes of WWII victory and postwar international order and fight back and thwart any form of provocation and reckless behavior of forces against China.”

Chinese writings on history laud the foreign policy of imperial China, harshly rejecting the charges against it by neighboring states. Writings on bilateral relations in East Asia further point to unacceptable criticisms of past Chinese behavior. Japan serves as the leading wedge in transferring this outlook on history into action made possible by China’s rise.

Writings on international relations mostly overlook publications on history. Censorship in China obscures Sinocentrism and the implications of historical arguments.

We should be aware of the great significance Confucian thought and communist ideology gave to views of the past. At critical turning points over the 50 years since Mao Zedong’s death, battles have raged within China over how to interpret the histories of key countries, such as Russia, Korea, and Japan. Growing negativity toward Japan’s past has preceded policy changes.

In the latest outcry against Takaichi we can detect both the impact of a deteriorating outlook and signs that a more assertive stage of Sinocentrism, not just assertiveness regarding Taiwan, is on the horizon.

Gilbert Rozman (grozman@princeton.edu) is the emeritus Musgrave professor of sociology, Princeton University, and served as editor in chief of the Asan Forum from 2013 to 2025. This article updates his final essay inwww.theasanforum.orgon “The Evolution of Chinese Thinking, 1985-2025, about the Cold War in Asia.” He has written about the role of history and national identities in bilateral relations involving China, Japan, Russia, and South Korea.