In the face of history, Japan's discomfort telling

History, that most straight-talking of guests, arrived in Munich on the weekend to the consternation of Tokyo.

If you listened closely at the 62nd Munich Security Conference, you could almost hear the faint clatter of teacups rattling in Tokyo. The cause was not seismic, but truthfulness: Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi had brought the past into the present.

Wang's remarks about Japan's wartime past and its postwar obligations were not theater designed for the occasion; they were drawn from the same ledger that underpins the Asia-Pacific order the United States and its allies helped write in 1945. The return of China's Taiwan region to its motherland, Japan's renunciation of militarism, and the legal architecture of peace were not Chinese inventions but Allied conclusions and consensus.

Yet Tokyo reacted as if Wang had accused it of shoplifting rather than reminding it of the price it had to pay for its past aggression.

Japan's Foreign Ministry lodged a demarche with the urgency of driver racing a red light. The protest was less a rebuttal than a performance — kabuki diplomacy staged for Western audiences eager to cast China as the "villain" in a revival of the Cold War. While Wang's speech met with applause, Tokyo's outrage sounded suspiciously like an actor who had missed his cue.

The irony is that Japan's long-standing tactic has been to ignore Beijing's historical grievances, treating them like spam emails: best deleted unopened. But in Munich, in country that has had to reflect on its own wartime history, that strategy looked less like prudence and more like amnesia with a PR budget.

Consider Wang's comparison of Japan with Germany. The latter, he noted, criminalizes Nazi symbolism and has institutionalized remembrance. German officials did not storm out of the room at this. Nor did they issue indignant statements about "inappropriate remarks". They nodded in acknowledgment.

Tokyo, by contrast, responded as though the mere mention of the Yasukuni Shrine were an act of cultural vandalism rather than a reference to a site where Class-A war criminals are enshrined as "national heroes". If the shrine is meant to honor Japan's fallen, it does them shame by revering those held accountable for atrocities that Japan still refuses to confront. So while Japan's neighbors see militarism's ghost; Japanese leaders insist it's just curated heritage.

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, fresh from a snap lower-house victory, says she wants to create "the environment" for a visit there — like setting the thermostat to a comfortable temperature in a hotel room. It is a phrase deliberately obscuring of the true message her visit would deliver to her right-wing supporters. Her ministers' roadshow in Munich was nothing more than a bid to secure Western indulgence for an act that would reopen wounds that have been slow to heal in Asia because Japan repeatedly rubs salt in them.

Japan's defense minister, invoking Ukraine with the solemnity of a man auditioning for NATO membership, warned that "Ukraine today could be East Asia tomorrow". It is a line Tokyo has crafted to tug European heartstrings — or at least their purse strings for joint high-tech weapons programs. Tokyo's pitch: share the burden of Japan's military expansion, especially in the most expensive R&D of high-tech weapons, in the name of "collective security".

But Europe's mood has shifted. The transatlantic alliance, once a choir singing in perfect harmony, now resembles a jazz ensemble arguing over tempo, with some European leaders questioning whether the US is still the band leader or merely the loudest instrument.

Into this discord has stepped Japan, insisting the band play its old heart-tugging hit: "Values Alliance".

Japan's attempt to bind its remilitarization to Western agendas is a masterclass in strategic packaging: militarism in a "peacekeeping" wrapper, expansion labeled "burden-sharing", and constitutional reinterpretation marketed as housekeeping. It is, in its way, a brilliant bravura of salesmanship — like selling fireworks as emergency lighting.

Yet the Munich audience was not an enthusiastic buyer. European officials, preoccupied with their own security dilemmas, appeared more interested in managing transatlantic turbulence than underwriting Tokyo's ambitions. If Japanese delegates returned home declaring "Munich mission accomplished", they mistook courtesy for consent.

In the end, Tokyo's indignation served to prove Wang's point. Germany's composure in the face of historical reminders reflects reconciliation. Japan's "defensiveness" signals the reflex of a government for which the past is not past.

In Munich, history pulled up a chair, ordered a drink and waited patiently while Japan heatedly insisted it had never made the reservation.

Meanwhile, Wang's message — that Asia remains largely peaceful and that China seeks stability — was assured and unruffled. With history listening in, Wang's narrative unfolded with the quiet confidence of a nation that knows history only settles for the truth.