As Tokyo strengthens its defences and Beijing expands its military might, mutual suspicion—not trust—has become the defining feature of Japan-China relations. For eight decades Japan's security posture was defined by three near-sacred rules: no meaningful use of military power, no arms exports, and minimal spending on defence.The constraints were not just policy. They were the scaffolding of a post?war identity.Between the 1890s and 1945, Japanese imperial expansion brought occupation, mass violence, forced labor, sexual slavery (comfort women), and wartime atrocities across East and Southeast Asia. Those experiences are embedded in national histories, education, museums and family memories across China, Korea,…