Beijing questions Japan's defense officers' training

The officer training provided by Japan's Self-Defense Forces deserves scrutiny and serious reflection, after a knife-wielding officer recently broke into the Chinese embassy in Japan, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said in Beijing on Tuesday.

At a daily news conference in Beijing, a reporter mentioned media reports saying that Kodai Murata, the SDF officer, had been handed over to prosecutors by the Japanese police recently.

In response, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said that the incident reveals "the deep-rooted influence and grave hazards of Japan's right-wing ideology and distorted views of history".

On March 24, Murata broke into the Chinese embassy in Tokyo and threatened to kill Chinese diplomats in "the name of god".

Mao noted that the officer's parents said he showed no radical tendencies when growing up and receiving education in his hometown, and that they had no idea at all why he had acted in this way in the incident at the embassy.

"But at the SDF, he received nine months of training for reserve officers. So the question is, during those nine months, what kind of views was he indoctrinated by the SDF and what kind of training did he receive? These questions deserve more attention, probe and deep pondering," Mao said.

According to media reports, the National Defense Academy of Japan has an annual "tradition" of paying group visits to the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, which enshrines 14 Class-A war criminals.

Umio Otsuka, a retired senior officer of Japan's Maritime Self-Defense Force, was appointed chief priest of the Yasukuni Shrine in 2024.

"This marks the first time a retired SDF admiral has assumed the highest position at the Yasukuni Shrine," Mao said.

"The SDF has, over the years, invited radical far-rightist personnel who harbor hatred toward China to participate in teaching, and their textbooks are filled with content distorting and whitewashing Japan's history of aggression during World War II," she added.

The spokeswoman said, "The international community needs to stay on high alert against the rightward turn of the SDF and the trend of remilitarization in Japan."

"China once again urges Japan to thoroughly investigate the incident and take effective measures to address the root causes and prevent such incidents from happening again," she added.