World War II in the Pacific saw Japan wage war against the United States and its allies in Asia. Like the Philippines, China fought on the allied side.

The historical record shows that Japanese troops committed countless atrocities in the Philippines. Those atrocities include the infamous Bataan Death March and the virtual destruction of Manila south of the Pasig River. Manila itself was the most devastated city in the Pacific Theater of World War II.

The listed atrocities include the military conscription of Filipino comfort women.

When the war ended, Filipino resentment against the Japanese was both expected and understandable. In 1956, diplomatic ties between the Philippines and Japan were formally established. A peace treaty was eventually signed, and Japan undertook to pay the Philippines the corresponding reparations for the damage its war wrought on the archipelago.

After the war, Japan vowed to cease waging war ever again and refrained from any behavior that could lead to needless armed conflict.

For the nearly eight decades since the war ended, Tokyo has consistently abided by its pacifist postwar constitution, imposed on Japan by the United States, which prohibits it from maintaining an aggressive military establishment. Japanese military forces today are limited to national defense.

From the ashes of war, Japan rebuilt itself into a powerhouse industrial economy.

Notwithstanding its postwar wealth, Japan has remained a peaceful nation. It has steadfastly refrained from pursuing the warpath against Russia and North Korea, two countries that insist that several islets of Japan belong to them.

Despite North Korean and mainland Chinese propaganda highlighting regional Japanese military atrocities during World War II, Tokyo consistently refuses to be provoked into a retaliatory mode.

Postwar Japan has also consistently extended a helping hand to Manila whenever calamities and similar problems occurred in the Philippines. Tokyo’s aid to Philippine infrastructure projects does not come with self-serving propaganda for Japan.

Indeed, from a World War II enemy, Japan today has become a truly friendly neighbor as far as the Philippines is concerned.

Modern Japan is an arsenal of democracy and is staunchly anti-communist.

In contrast, present-day China has become a communist bully in both East and South East Asia.

During the Korean War, China joined the fighting on the side of North Korea, the communist dictatorship that wanted to take over South Korea by force of arms.

Communist Chinese intervention saved North Korea from extinction by the United Nations forces who came to the rescue of South Korea. That intervention, and the subsequent Chinese economic assistance to North Korea, helped the Korean communists become the troublemaking, saber-rattling, and nuclear-powered international gadflies that they are today.

In the 1950s, China forcibly seized the territory of its peaceful neighbor Tibet and has ruled the region with an iron fist since then.

China fought a war with India over disputed territory, and gave up only when it realized India was not going to allow itself to be bullied.

It seized the Paracel Islands east of Vietnam, and currently claims islets near Japan. Like what happened in the Chinese-Indian territorial war, Japanese determination against Chinese aggression prompted China not to fight it out with Japan through the use of military force.

Despite its hollow claim that it desires peace and stability in Asia, China does not bother to hide its desire to take Taiwan by force, even if that action will provoke a war with the United States and its allies.

In manifest violation of International Law, China has also seized islets and shoals within the exclusive economic zone of the Philippines. An international arbitration tribunal has already ruled that China has no legal right to those areas, but the communist giant refuses to honor the arbitral ruling.

Today, the Chinese navy repeatedly bullies Philippine Coast Guard ships and Filipino fishermen inside the EEZ of the Philippines.

And to think that China was an ally of the Philippines during World War II.