In the last century, the Japanese imperialists militarily occupied Korea and were hell-bent on the colonial repression of the Korean people.

Saying that the Koreans should obey the Japanese law or die, they forced an idea of servile submission on the Korean people, killed, forcibly drafted and abducted many of them and tried to deprive them of even their names and language. And they destroyed and plundered at random the national treasures, precious cultural heritage elements and many natural resources of Korea.

But they were unable to cope with the united might of the Korean revolutionaries and people who turned out with arms in their hands and declared unconditional surrender on August 15 1945.

Their defeat proved that aggressors are only bound to end in a shameful fiasco and those who try to enslave human beings can never escape the stern punishment by history.

It is 80 years since its defeat. Japan is, however, still obsessed with the ambition for overseas aggression, oblivious of the lesson from the defeat and the truth of history.

Its attempt to turn itself into a military power is aimed at realizing its old dream of the “Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere” it failed to realize in the past.

After its defeat, Japan dashed towards a military power with a wild revanchist ambition for reinvasion. Lifting one by one the legal restrictions which banned it from having a regular army, as well as the right to belligerency and participation in a war, it has put spurs to turning itself into a military giant and is now more openly stepping up the development of offensive weapons.

It also persists in the distortion of history far from making an apology and reparations for its past crimes.

It is inciting the new generations to become a shock brigade in overseas aggression free from the sense of guilt over the past crimes by implanting distorted views on history in them. The annual group visits of the right-wing conservative politicians to the Yasukuni Shrine which houses the name tablets of class-A war criminals clearly show how desperately Japan pursues revanchism and the ambition for reinvasion.

Recently, Japan has staged war exercises in collusion with the US and NATO even in the Asia-Pacific region, never concealing that they target the DPRK and other neighbouring countries.

History mirrors future.

One who cannot draw a lesson from the wrong past surely repeats it.

Japan, which is reckless, obsessed with an ambition of overseas expansion, should have a correct understanding of the reality.

The militaristic ambition for reinvasion will only invite the tragic result of ruining Japan again.