Commentary: Is Japan qualified to take the moral high ground on international laws?

It is hypocritical for Japan, the presiding country of the Ise-Shima summit of the Group of Seven (G7), to require others to abide by the international laws when the island country led by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe neither follows its own Constitution nor international laws.

Abe said in a press conference after the G7 meeting that it was important that states made and clarified their claims "based on international law, refrained from unilateral actions which could increase tensions and not use force or coercion in trying to drive their claims," regarding the East and South China Sea issues.

However, for Japan, it has never been a claimant in the South China Sea and, historically, Japan returned the islands it occupied during World War II to China abiding by the Potsdam Proclamation after its defeat in 1945. What China has done in the South China Sea falls entirely within China's sovereignty, and is completely legal, reasonable and blameless.

It is an undeniable fact that it was Japan in 2012 that unilaterally and illegally "nationalized" parts of China's inherent territories, the Diaoyu Islands, and tremendously damaged relations with its closest neighbor.

Japan, meanwhile, claims some 470,000 square km of exclusive economic zone and some 255,000 square km of outer continental shelf by several barren rocks that are less than 10 square meters and are submerged when the tide rises.

Since 1987, the Japanese government started to construct artificial buildings on the rocks so as to support its claim that the rocks are an island. But according to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the uninhabited rocks named Okinotori are only reefs that cannot be legitimately claimed as an exclusive economic zone.

Furthermore, Japan continues its so-called scientific whaling, despite international calls to forgo its lethal whale hunts and a rule by the International Court of Justice in 2014, urging Japan to stop capturing and killing whales.

Following the U.S. "pivot to Asia" strategy, Japan has become increasingly aggressive in meddling in the South China Sea issue and decided to prop up the military capabilities of some Southeast Asian countries by unconstitutionally lifting the ban on the right to collective self-defense and its restrictions on weapons exports.

But such one-sided and hypocritical interferences, unfortunately, always resulted in tragedies and are never successful antidotes to any conflicts.

If Japan seeks to stand tall as a pillar of morality in front of the international community, it should admit all its own wrongdoings regarding international laws and correct its own misbehaviors.

Japan should also adopt concrete actions to mend ties with its neighboring countries by facing up to its wartime atrocities. Only then will it be revealed if a leopard can really change its spots. Endit