Editor's Note:

Since Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe retook the office from December 2012, Japan has started to shift its course to what China and others see as a dangerous path. The increasing turn to the right has drawn increasing worries from many of Japan's neighbors. Beijing argues that Japan's policies threaten "the postwar order." People's Daily invited several Chinese scholars to comment on this issue.

Huo Qicheng and Zhang Shibin, Japan specialists at the PLA Academy of Military Sciences

Abe's visit to the notorious Yasukuni Shrine on December 26 was nothing but an attempt to stir up the right-wing forces. It denied the outcome of WWII, and more importantly, challenged the post-WWII international order.

The war-linked shrine is actually a spiritual sanctuary of Abe's right-wing historical view. The visit was actually Abe's pilgrimage to honor his beliefs.

Under the influence of his family, which has close connections with right-wing ideology, Abe is determined to cast off "the burden of history," and readopted his grandfather's "state building" vision.

By winning favor from and depending on the right-wing groups, which are his main source of strength, Abe is gaining speed on this dangerous road.

Abe's right-wing historical view has also been applied to policymaking.

Domestically, he is trying to amend the peaceful constitution and expand Japan's military.

On the diplomatic front, Japan keeps provoking territorial disputes with its Asian neighbors, making this area face the highest tensions since WWII.

Abe's twisted historical view is only an illusion and is leading Japan in a hazardous direction. History has already proved that any attempt to defy human justice will be doomed to fail.

Jin Canrong and Wang Hao, respectively Associate Dean of and a PhD candidate at the School of International Studies of Renmin University of China

Abe compared the current China-Japan relations to those between the UK and Germany before WWI at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January. This comparison implies that Japan and China might engage in war. It is a wrong and dangerous implication.

It should be noted that the current international order is totally different from the one on the eve of WWI.

A century ago, social Darwinism was dominant in the international community, which made war become a major solution to conflicts.

Now negotiations have taken the place of violence in dealing with confrontation. Abe's statement is going against this trend.

The nature of China-Japan relations is also different from the relationship between the pre-WWI UK and Germany. China, a beneficiary of the postwar peace order, has no reason to change the status quo.

And Japan, a defeated country in WWII, cannot be compared to the UK before WWI.

What's more, it is Japan who always makes aggressive gestures. The right-wing groups have made Japan a troublemaker in Asia and the world. The reckless moves are being made to restore Japan to its status as a "normal country" by challenging the post-WWII order.

Abe playing the trick of a thief crying "stop thief" needs to be exposed, and the world should be on high alert continuously.

Liu Shigang, a Japan specialist at the PLA Academy of Military Sciences

Abe keeps asserting that amending the constitution is his lifelong political dream. If he has his way on this issue, such as allowing Japanese army to exercise collective self-defense, the foundation of the peaceful constitution would be shaken and the postwar order would be challenged.

Abe's two terms as the prime minister have been devoted to promoting the constitutional amendments. This is the key step for Japan to break away from the postwar order, as stated by Abe himself during his first term.

Amending the constitution will free Japan from the US-established framework to prevent Japan from returning to militarism, and it will make Japanese army a "normal" military power.

Once these basic objectives are realized, Japan would go further. But Japan's wishful thinking will not easily come into reality, because the order has been widely recognized by the global community.