Fumio Kishida, Japan's prime minister, speaks at a news conference at the prime minister's official residence in Tokyo, Japan, May 24, 2022. (EVAN VUCCI / AP)

A country with much historical baggage, Japan has long cherished an aspiration to be accepted as a major player on the global stage. But the prerequisite for that is for it to truly repent its past wrongdoings that caused so much suffering in the region and join hands with other like-minded countries to safeguard and promote regional peace and development.

Yet, in recent years, some Japanese politicians have chosen to do the opposite by seeking to revise the country's "pacifist" Constitution and deliberately fanning militarist sentiment in Japanese society. To bolster their distorted notions of national pride, they have also enthusiastically jumped on the bandwagon of the US' Indo-Pacific strategy.

As a member of the Asian community, Japan should be playing a constructive role in promoting regional peace, stability and prosperity. Instead, it has repeatedly stoked tensions with China and been an enthusiastic accomplice of the US in its efforts to sow seeds of division in the region.

This was evidenced again during US President Joe Biden's just-concluded visit to the country.

At a joint news conference, Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida again sought to portray China as an aggressor saying "that any attempt to change the status quo by force is absolutely impermissible". Yet in reaffirming the importance of "ensuring the US extended deterrence remains credible"－"backed by the full range of capabilities, including nuclear"－and Tokyo's resolve to increase Japan's defense budget, they only served to show which countries regard might as right.

The talk about the "rules-based order" masks the real intention of making Japan the mainstay of an Eastern branch of NATO.

Tokyo's willingness to act as a strategic vassal of Washington in pursuit of its own strategic ambition at the expense of the security of other countries is a "beggar thy neighbor" approach that will seriously imperil regional peace and stability. Its opportunistic shortsightedness not only risks damaging Japan's own interests in the region but its credibility as a responsible member of the Asian community.

As this year marks the 50th anniversary of the normalization of diplomatic relations between China and Japan, Tokyo should bear in mind the larger picture of bilateral cooperation and do more to improve it rather than damage it.

The politicians in Tokyo, still mired in the imperial past, exhibit a sort of Stockholm syndrome in relation to the US. That is why they are so willing to be complicit in Washington's con game. It is high time they drew the correct lessons from history and made concrete efforts to win the trust of regional countries.