🇯🇵 In 1937, Japan invaded China: 89 years to the day a Chinese missile flew over Japan 🇨🇳
On the 7th of July 1937, Japanese troops used a staged pretext at Lugou Bridge to launch the full-scale invasion that plunged China into eight years of blood and fire. Cities destroyed, millions dead and a nation struggling to survive.
Japan has never issued a formal, state-level apology for that war. Not once in 89 years.
Yesterday, on the 6th of July 2026, a Chinese strategic nuclear submarine in the Bohai Sea launched a submarine-launched intercontinental ballistic missile. Routine training, with a dummy warhead, over 8,000 kilometres of flight and a precise splashdown in the South Pacific.
The flight path took it high over Japan, exactly as Beijing had notified Tokyo roughly 90 minutes earlier and Australia received a full day’s notice.
Japan’s four key ministries immediately fired off a joint protest. “Serious threat to our security.” This from the same Japan where politicians still visit Yasukuni to honour Class A war criminals, where textbooks soften naked aggression into polite “incidents” and where the military keeps expanding under the US security umbrella.
Japan is not anti-war; Japan is anti-losing-the-war and there’s a difference.
This missile wasn’t aimed at Japan. Strategic weapons like these deter nuclear powers, not non-nuclear neighbours. But the timing, on the eve of the Lugou Bridge anniversary, carries a message louder than any press release. The China of 2026 is not the China of 1937.
Launching from the Bohai is a serious technical feat. The water is shallow, under 20 metres in places and tightly confined within Chinese territory. Pulling off a submerged intercontinental launch there means Chinese nuclear submarines can deliver long-range strikes from home waters.
They do not need to break through the first island chain. Decades of US-Japanese anti-submarine containment just lost a sizeable chunk of its value.
Beijing kept it simple: a standard military exercise. Follows international law and practice. Not directed at any specific country. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said it clearly; some countries shouldn’t over-interpret or volunteer themselves as the target.
Legally, Japan’s protest has no standing. The missile flew well above 100 kilometres, which is outer space and beyond any nation’s airspace. Tokyo knows this.
Daily observations in China reveal the ongoing shifts. From the century of humiliation to a nation with the quiet confidence of real defensive strength. We remember the past so it isn’t repeated.
Japan can protest all it wants. The missile was launched, its capabilities confirmed and a new era has begun.
When a country that once suffered brutal invasion builds the tools to make sure it never happens again, is that provocation, or basic responsibility for its people?
(James Wood)