Xi Condemns Efforts to Play Down Japan’s Wartime Aggression

Chinese citizens gather in Chongqing to commemorate the 77th anniversary of the start of Japan's war with China.Credit Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

President Xi Jinping spoke Monday at a ceremony in Beijing marking the 77th anniversary of Japan’s war with China, and he condemned efforts to revise views of Japan’s history of military aggression.

“History is history, and facts are facts. Nobody can change history and facts,” Mr. Xi said during the ceremony at a war museum in suburban Beijing, which was attended by students, officials and war veterans. “Chinese people who have made such a great sacrifice will not waver in protecting a history written in sacrifice and blood. Anyone who wants to deny, distort or beautify the history of the invasion will definitely not find agreement from the people of China or the rest of the world.”

As tensions between China and Japan remain high over territorial disputes, China has sought to publicize Japan’s brutal wartime occupation, a reminder of how the past is never far behind in the relationship between the two Asian powers.

While Mr. Xi’s predecessor, Hu Jintao, also participated in war memorial events, it was typically on dates that were commemorated internationally, such as the 2005 observances marking the 60th anniversary of the end of the war or the 65th anniversary in 2010.

Monday’s event marked the anniversary of the July 7, 1937, Marco Polo Bridge incident, a skirmish between Japanese Imperial Army forces and China’s Nationalist Army along a rail line southwest of Beijing. Although Japan invaded Manchuria six years earlier, the 1937 incident is considered the official start of the full-scale conflict, which is known in China as the War of Resistance Against Japan.

Monday’s ceremony, which included the unveiling of a sculpture based on a medal given to Chinese veterans of the conflict, was given extensive coverage by Chinese newspapers, television and online media. Veterans from both the Chinese Kuomintang and Chinese Communist armies participated.

The Marco Polo Bridge incident is also known in Chinese as the “77 incident” for its date on the seventh day of the seventh month of the year. But the Chinese news media noted the particularly high-profile celebration had as much to do with current events as historic dates.

“It’s worth paying attention to the fact that this year is the commemoration of the 77th anniversary of the start of the all people’s war of resistance, and the 69th anniversary of victory, it really isn’t an ‘every five’ or ‘every 10’ year event,” reported The Beijing News, which made the anniversary its lead story Monday.

The unusual focus this year is closely related to the state of relations between China and Japan, the newspaper said, citing the Shanghai Normal University historian Su Zhiliang. “At this time, we are reviewing history and its real meaning, to make the Chinese people more vigilant and at the same time warn international society,” Mr. Su said.

China has accused Japan of failing to fully come to terms with its wartime aggression and has questioned the sincerity of its apology for the sexual slavery of women from China, Korea and other parts of Asia during the war. Visits by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan and other Japanese officials to the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, which honors the nation’s war dead, including several Class A war criminals, routinely set off complaints from China and South Korea.

China and Japan have been at odds over uninhabited islets in the East China Sea that Japan occupies but China also claims as its own. Waters around the islets, known as the Senkaku in Japan and the Diaoyu in China, have seen frequent encounters between Chinese and Japanese coast guard and military vessels. Last month China accused Japanese military pilots of acting aggressively when they flew close to a Chinese surveillance plane over the East China Sea.

Chinese officials and the state news media have criticized Mr. Abe’s moves to revise his nation’s antiwar Constitution to give its military more freedom to aid friendly nations that have come under attack.

Last week, China began publicizing the confessions of Japanese war criminals who were convicted by Chinese military tribunals in the early 1950s. The State Archives Administration said it would publish one confession a day for the next 45 days, and each daily release has been closely covered by China’s state-run news media. The deputy director of the administration, Li Minghua, said the decision to publish the confessions was in response to Japanese efforts to play down the legacy of the war.

“Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, disregarding historical justice and human conscience, has been openly turning black into white, misleading the public, and beautifying Japanese aggression and its colonial history since he took office,” Mr. Li said, according to a report from China’s state-run Xinhua news agency.

Last month China submitted documentation of the 1937 Nanjing massacre, in which thousands of civilians were killed by Japanese troops, and the sexual enslavement of women in brothels that served Japan’s army for recognition by Unesco’s Memory of the World Register. Japan, which criticized China’s move, submitted documents to Unesco from Japanese prisoners of war who were held by the Soviet Union.