The 731 incident was just the most startling of a series of diplomatic gaffes with a nationalist theme during the Abe administration. In 2013, Japan unveiled the largest battleship it had constructed since the Second World War. The vessel was nominally a destroyer but was, in fact, an aircraft carrier in all but name. The construction of the ship was a legitimate, arguably necessary, response to China’s naval buildup. But by naming the new vessel the Izumo—the same name as one of the ships that had led the Japanese invasion of China in the 1930s—Japan handed a propaganda gift to the Chinese.
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