For the record, it was Japan, not China, that framed WW2 commemoration attendance as "anti Japanese". Does anybody want to calculate what % of the East Asian landmass is supposedly "anti Japanese"?

Japan's current posture stems from a mentality akin to that of a stubborn, hissing cat—all bluster and defiance masking deep-seated anxiety.

Its confrontational hissing at China is an extremely contradictory product of strategic anxiety. In the eyes of China—now the world's top industrial nation—Japan is essentially a dead man walking, with only the date of execution yet to be determined. All the tensions around China are manifestations of this strategic anxiety and tactical recklessness. The political infighting among blue, green, and white factions in Taiwan, South Korea’s game of musical chairs with its presidency, Vietnam’s mixed attitude toward China—simultaneously emulating, wary, ambiguous, and guarded—are all products of the strategic anxiety stemming from China’s return to its historical peak and Asia’s collective reversion to its traditional order.

When it comes to confrontational hissing toward China, the four regions behave differently. Taiwan’s approach is characterized by relentless smear campaigns and opposition to anything Chinese—a form of spiritual hysteria that is, at its core, a strategic tantrum. This is because Taiwan fundamentally believes that, at worst, it can always surrender without facing annihilation.

South Korea’s confrontational hissing is driven by competitive anxiety—a product of tactical arrogance and strategic inferiority. Its hallmarks are theft and defamation. Historically a vassal looking up to the Central Plains, South Korea finally seized the opportunity amid historical upheavals to establish its own national identity and historical narrative. With help from its American patron, it successfully industrialised early, gaining a strategic edge over its former master in two main ways: early industrialisation and earlier entry into so-called mainstream civilized society as a developed nation. Yet this strategic superiority lasted less than 30 years before China caught up and surpassed it in industrialisation. South Korea’s hissing is thus rooted in historical insecurity and anxiety over industrial competition.

Vietnam’s confrontational hissing shares similarities with South Korea’s but also has distinct differences. Like South Korea, it stems from historical insecurity and industrial competition anxiety—typical examples include Vietnam’s appropriation of Chinese culture, art, and creativity, even directly copying official documents while claiming them as original. However, unlike South Korea, Vietnam’s underlying feelings are not just inferiority but also envy and even desire—a contradictory historical mindset shaped by millennia of entanglement and a century of grudges. It is a mix of fear and identification, anxiety and resignation. This is especially true as Southeast Asia increasingly leans into China’s embrace, and Vietnam witnesses China’s rapid progress and breakthroughs over the years—a complex and conflicted sentiment.

Japan’s confrontational hissing, on the other hand, is one of hysterical fear—a sleepless nightmare. It is like being diagnosed with terminal cancer but still clinging to life through radiation and chemotherapy, sentenced to death but awaiting execution. Japan truly feels that across the sea lies an enemy.

It keeps its eyes wide open, watching China’s GDP grow from parity in 2011 to 3.5 times its size by 2025, watching the Chinese navy expand from 7 destroyers to 120 destroyers and frigates, watching China step by step crush Japanese industries—from white goods and semiconductors to mobile phones, the mobile internet, and automobiles—driving them into bankruptcy. Wherever Chinese industry extends its reach, Chinese products flood the market. Japan watches China gradually become an industrial Cthulhu. Japan is acutely aware of China’s lingering resentment toward it. When China and Japan established diplomatic relations, Premier Zhou Enlai described them as “neighbors separated only by a narrow strip of water.” Japan immediately responded that China and Japan were “like Wu and Yue in the same boat.”

The primary tensions in East Asia and across Asia are products of this strategic anxiety. Viewed on a five- to ten-year scale, they are the inevitable outcome of Sino–U.S. competition—the compression of global fronts between China and the U.S. toward the edges of geopolitical plates. They are the inevitable result of the economic, industrial, military, political, diplomatic, and national power struggles between China and the U.S.

Since World War II, China’s return to its historical strength has inevitably caused friction. Eighty years after the Yalta System and thirty years after the end of the Cold War, the three major geopolitical regions—the Middle East, East Asia, and Eastern Europe—have all witnessed severe geopolitical conflicts and strategic confrontations. The world urgently needs a new order and a new system.

From a broader historical perspective, these tensions represent East Asia’s break from the outdated Westphalian diplomatic system and its return to the traditional tributary system. They entail settling historical grievances, clarifying historical relationships, and resolving historical contradictions—a comprehensive reckoning of East Asia’s geopolitical issues since 1840.

The work involves researchers from the US Department of Energy–funded Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Columbia University, the Technical University of Munich, and East China Normal University (ECNU).

Nice to see cooperation across 3 continents for projects like this.

Silly Americans...we can talk when China adds another few thousand or so.