China marks Nanjing massacre quietly amid Japan tensions
China held a low-key memorial ceremony on Saturday to mark the 88th anniversary of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, even as diplomatic tensions with Japan remain high over Taiwan. President Xi Jinping did not attend the event, which took place at the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Museum.
Relations between Beijing and Tokyo have deteriorated in recent weeks after Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said a potential Chinese attack on Taiwan could prompt a military response from Japan. China has strongly criticised the remarks, viewing them as interference in its internal affairs, News.Az reports, citing Reuters.
China has long used the Nanjing Massacre to highlight the brutality of Japan’s wartime actions. Beijing says Japanese troops killed around 300,000 people when they captured Nanjing, then China’s capital, in 1937. A post-World War Two Allied tribunal estimated the death toll at 142,000, while some conservative Japanese politicians and scholars continue to dispute that a massacre occurred.
Saturday’s ceremony was attended by senior Communist Party official Shi Taifeng, head of the party’s powerful organisation department. Referring to a speech by Xi at a September military parade marking 80 years since the end of World War Two, Shi struck a notably restrained tone compared with recent official rhetoric.
“History has fully demonstrated that the Chinese nation is a great nation that fears no power and stands on its own feet,” Shi said. While he did not name Japan or Prime Minister Takaichi directly, he warned against attempts to revive militarism or undermine the post-war international order.
The ceremony lasted less than 30 minutes and concluded with doves released over the memorial site. Attendees included police officers and schoolchildren.
China designated December 13 as a national memorial day for the massacre in 2014. Xi last attended the ceremony in person in 2017, when he urged both countries to set aside hatred and prevent past militarism from damaging current relations. Chinese authorities did not immediately comment on his absence this year.
Separately, China’s military signalled a harsher message. The Eastern Theatre Command of the People’s Liberation Army posted an image on social media depicting a bloodied sword striking a skeleton wearing a Japanese army cap, accompanied by language recalling historical grievances between the two nations.
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