The prime minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe, will not attend Victory Day events in Beijing next month to mark the end of the second world war, partly in protest against China’s military build-up in regional waters, Japanese media said.

The chief cabinet secretary, Yoshihide Suga, said Abe had decided against attending commemorative events around 3 September – the day China marks the success of its “war of resistance against Japanese aggression” – so he could oversee the passage of controversial security legislation at home.

The upper house of Japan’s parliament is debating a series of Abe-inspired bills that would expand the role of the country’s military, including fighting overseas for the first time since the end of the war.

But the Sankei newspaper quoted official sources as saying Abe was also concerned that his presence in Beijing could be interpreted as accepting China’s increasingly aggressive activity near disputed island territories in the region.

China has been condemned for building artificial islands in areas of the South China Sea that are also claimed by Vietnam, the Philippines and other countries.

It is also embroiled in a simmering dispute with Japan over ownership of a group of uninhabited islands in the East China Sea, called the Senkakus by Japan and the Diaoyu by China.

Abe and other world leaders had been invited to attend the anniversary events, which will include a spectacular Victory Day parade in Tiananmen Square, featuring 12,000 troops, conventional and nuclear missiles and more than 100 aircraft.

Officials in Beijing said the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and at least 10 other leaders would attend the event on 3 September, one day after Japan formally surrendered to the allies aboard the USS Missouri in 1945.

But most western leaders, including the US president, Barack Obama, and the British prime minister, David Cameron, are expected to shun the event. The South Korean president, Park Geun-hye, will reportedly take part in a ceremony to mark the anniversary, but has not decided whether or not to attend the parade.

Large swaths of Beijing went into shutdown at the weekend as tanks, missile launchers and thousands of troops poured into the city centre for a rehearsal.

Soldiers of the people’s liberation army march past an image of the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, during rehearsals for the military parade on 3 September. Photograph: Rolex Dela Pena/EPA

Photographs posted on social media sites showed military planes swooping over the heart of the capital and a helicopter formation spelling out the number 70 in the unusually blue skies above.

“It was a feast for the eyes,” the state-run Global Times reported on Monday. “The populace is embracing the parade with excitement.”

An opinion piece in the same newspaper downplayed suggestions the parade was solely intended as an attack on Japan.

“The west tends to perceive the parade from the perspectives of realpolitik and international relations,” wrote Song Luzheng, a Chinese academic.

“They also argue that China will use historical issues as a tool to contend with Japan. Some sinologists even say that China is taking advantage of history to consolidate the legitimacy of the ruling party.”



In fact, “the first purpose of the parade is to remind the world of China’s status as a victorious nation, which came at a huge cost.”

Almost daily reports about alleged Japanese atrocities during the second world war suggest otherwise.

“Japanese soldiers fried the flesh of a Chinese civilian and ate it during [the second world war],” Xinhua, China’s official news agency, reported last week.

News that Abe will not attend dashes any suggestion that he may have used the visit for a bilateral meeting with the Chinese president, Xi Jinping.

Instead, officials in Tokyo hope to set up a meeting on the sidelines of the UN general assembly later next month, or at November’s Apec summit in the Philippines, Kyodo quoted government sources as saying.

The pair held their first formal talks on the sidelines of last November’s Apec summit in Beijing.

Relations between Asia’s two biggest economic powers have been severely strained over the Senkaku/Diaoyu dispute and Chinese claims that Japan has failed to atone for wartime atrocities committed in occupied China before and during the war.

Last week Abe marked the 70th anniversary of Japan’s surrender with a statement in which he extended his “sincere condolences” to the country’s wartime victims, but stopped short of issuing a fresh apology.

Beijing criticised the omission, but its reaction was more muted than some had expected.

While Xi is expected to mention Japan’s wartime aggression next month, the Chinese foreign ministry said his speech would be forward-looking and “not directed at any third parties”.

