TOKYO, April 24 (Xinhua) -- In less than a week, Japan lifted its ban on lethal arms exports, moved closer to establishing a new intelligence apparatus, and saw more than 100 politicians sending ritual offerings or paying visits to the notorious Yasukuni Shrine.

Each move is enough to raise alarms. Taken together, they form an unmistakable picture: Tokyo is accelerating, with deliberate speed, down the dangerous path toward remilitarization, which its postwar pacifist Constitution was specifically designed to prevent.

RADICAL MOVES

Japan has made a series of controversial moves in rapid succession this week.

On Tuesday, the Japanese government, led by Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, officially revised the "three principles on transfer of defense equipment and technology" and their implementation guidelines.

The revisions scrap the restrictions that had limited arms exports to five non-combat categories, allow, in principle, the export of lethal weapons, permit transfers to nations engaged in active conflict under specified circumstances, and sideline parliament from the decision-making process -- crossing a line that previous governments had at least nominally upheld.

Kyodo News commented that the changes mark a significant shift in defense policy for a country that has touted itself as a "peace-loving nation."

Some critics in Japan bluntly pointed out that permitting the export of lethal weapons amounts to participating in and exacerbating international conflicts, violates the nation's "exclusively defense-oriented policy," and risks turning Japan into a "merchant of death" profiting from overseas wars.

Whether by coincidence or careful design, the revisions were announced on the opening day of the annual Spring Rites at the notorious Yasukuni Shrine, which honors 14 convicted Class-A Japanese war criminals from World War II (WWII) alongside the war dead.

Takaichi, who regularly visited the shrine for its key events before taking office in October, sent a ritual "masakaki" tree offering to the shrine on Tuesday and made a monetary offering on Wednesday.

Following her lead, more than 100 Japanese politicians made offerings or paid visits during the three-day rites, in brazen disregard of the deep sensitivities of those who suffered from Japan's wartime aggression, drawing widespread criticism at home and fierce condemnation from neighboring countries.

The week's drama did not end there. On Thursday, the government's bill to establish a new national intelligence committee cleared the powerful House of Representatives.

Aimed at consolidating the country's fragmented intelligence capabilities into a central command, the new apparatus will oversee intelligence activities covering not only national security and counter-terrorism, but also "overseas intelligence activities" involving foreign espionage.

While the bill has drawn deep concerns from opposition parties and the public over the new body's potential privacy threats and its ability to remain politically neutral, the Ryukyu Shimpo starkly said in an editorial that Japan has taken yet another step closer to a "new pre-war system."

DANGEROUS AGENDA

None of these moves is isolated. Rather, they are all part of a consistent, incremental and cumulative agenda long pursued by Japan's right-wing forces: to break free from the dual constraints placed on the country by the international community and its own legal framework in the aftermath of WWII, and to transform Japan into a "normal country" with expanded military capabilities.

Since Takaichi took office, those efforts have been accelerated across the board, framed around a so-called "survival-threatening situation."

In the military area, the Japanese government has taken a series of risky moves, including hiking the defense budget, restructuring the Self-Defense Forces to enhance combat capabilities, deploying long-range missiles with so-called "counterstrike capabilities," and lifting the ban on lethal weapons exports.

In addition, it also relentlessly attempted to revise the "Three Non-Nuclear Principles" and the three security documents. All these moves point to a deliberate departure from Japan's postwar pacifist principles and an advance toward remilitarization.

Meanwhile, Japan has been actively forging exclusive security blocs, stoking bloc confrontation, advancing overseas military deployments and expanding the scope of military activities.

The latest moves include sending its largest-ever contingent to the annual joint military drills conducted by the Philippines and the United States and signing a joint naval vessels project with Australia.

Yet as Japan deepens these military ties, it has deliberately allowed its relations with neighboring countries to deteriorate.

In November last year, Takaichi made erroneous remarks on the Taiwan question, significantly undermining mutual trust between China and Japan.

Rather than easing strains, Tokyo has doubled down on provocation. Last week, it sent a destroyer through the Taiwan Strait, compounding earlier missteps.

Meanwhile, efforts to whitewash history have continued unabated. Right-wing forces have tampered with textbooks to downplay or deny Japan's wartime aggression, made repeated visits and ritual offerings to the notorious Yasukuni Shrine, and propagated the so-called "Yasukuni historical view," a narrative that whitewashes and even glorifies the country's wartime past.

Such actions hugely hurt the feelings of the people of China, South Korea and other countries brutalized by Japan before and during WWII, and risk distorting how future generations understand history, while gradually eroding the collective memory of Japan's wartime atrocities.

A stark illustration of the dangers posed by such ideological infiltration came in March, when a Self-Defense Forces officer barged into the Chinese embassy in Tokyo with a long knife, threatening to kill Chinese diplomatic personnel.

Beyond all these moves, right-wing forces are increasingly targeting the very foundation of Japan's postwar identity -- the pacifist Constitution, which renounces war as a sovereign right and prohibits Japan from possessing "war potential."

At the Liberal Democratic Party convention on April 12, Takaichi declared that "the time has come" to reform the Constitution, saying that "we would like to hold next year's convention with a proposal for a constitutional amendment in sight" -- setting a clearer timeline than her predecessors.

THREATS TO PEACE

Japan's series of controversial moves has triggered sustained criticism and ongoing protests at home, while casting a growing shadow over regional peace and security.

Over the past few months, demonstrations have been staged almost weekly in Tokyo and other places across the country.

Protesters have repeatedly voiced opposition to the expansion of military capabilities, the easing of restrictions on lethal arms exports, controversial constitutional revisions and the strengthening of national intelligence functions.

On April 8, around 30,000 people gathered outside the National Diet Building in Tokyo. Just over 10 days later, another large rally drew about 36,000 people to the same location. Yet, despite mounting public discontent and opposition, the government has largely turned a deaf ear, blindly pressing ahead with its agenda.

Kiyoshi Sugawa, a senior research fellow at the East Asian Community Institute of Japan, warned that the Japanese government may steer the country onto a highly dangerous path if left unchecked.

In a commentary, Japan's daily newspaper Shimbun Akahata said that the Takaichi administration's words and actions lay bare its intention to abandon the pacifist principles enshrined in the Japanese constitution and transform Japan into a "war-capable country."

"Japan must not tolerate a prime minister who is running amok down the dangerous road of destroying peace," the paper warned.

Masaru Kaneko, a professor emeritus with Japan's Keio University, wrote on social media that the Takaichi government is attempting to use constitutional revision and militarization to paper over Japan's looming economic collapse, and now it is moving to restrict freedom of expression and suppress dissenting voices.

All of this is "repeating the same catastrophic mistakes of the past," he warned.

Perhaps what Tetsuya Takahashi, a professor emeritus at the University of Tokyo, once said best captures the essence of what is unfolding today: Contemporary Japanese society ought to engage in profound reflection on its history of aggression; yet in reality, Japan's ties to pre-war militarism have never been truly severed.

A government that expends offensive military capabilities, centralizes intelligence functions, relaxes arms export rules and worships convicted war criminals is not merely adjusting routine security policies. It is dismantling, piece by piece, the architecture that the postwar international order put in place to ensure that the tragedies brought by Japanese militarism would never be repeated.

Japan's quickened remilitarization is becoming a present danger and comes with a clear roadmap and concrete steps, posing grave threats to its neighbors, the region and the world at large. That is why the world must be on vigilance now. The international community should act with resolve to prevent Japan's risky moves towards neo-militarism.