China vs Japan: the battle for the global microphone to reshape post-war identity

China vs Japan: the battle for the global microphone to reshape post-war identity In quest to win trust of Asian neighbours, Beijing is intensifying its rhetoric against Tokyo’s changing defence posture In stark contrast, Japan has rejected the label as “false claims”, casting itself as a defender of regional security, a peace-loving country and a victim of “coercion”. Tokyo has argued that Beijing’s expanding arsenal, “opaque” military build-ups and “challenges to the established rules” should worry the international community. “China faces a profoundly distorted global narrative that has largely obscured the fascist atrocities committed by Japan against China and other nations during World War II that have never been fully reckoned with at the international level,” said Shen Yi, executive director of the Centre for National Security Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai.