Eighty years after the opening of the Tokyo Trial, its warning still resonates: once unleashed, militarism leaves scars that outlast generations. It was a landmark of international justice, holding Japanese militarism accountable and reaffirming the postwar international order.

Amid painful memories, peace-loving people find recent provocative moves by Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi and her government -- ranging from attempts to break through Japan's pacifist constitution to repeated gestures toward the notorious Yasukuni Shrine, from lifting the ban on arms exports to expanding military reach abroad -- particularly concerning.

The "empty chair" at the Tokyo Trial reveals what was left unfinished: the failure to bring all wartime perpetrators to justice. Far from marking the end of Japanese militarism, that absence casts a shadow that lingers still. History demands not just remembrance, but reckoning. Without it, the line between past and present blurs to a dangerous thinness.■

Produced by Xinhua Global Service■