• Sun
  • Dec 28, 2014
  • Updated: 1:13am

China must retaliate for Japanese prime minister’s war shrine visit: official media

Official media warns China will become a ‘paper tiger’ if countermeasures against Japan are not taken over Yasukuni visit

PUBLISHED : Friday, 27 December, 2013, 11:46am
UPDATED : Friday, 27 December, 2013, 4:33pm

China must take “excessive” counter-measures after Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s controversial war shrine visit, state-run media urged on Friday, reflecting the smouldering resentment among Chinese at its onetime invader.

China expressed its opposition and summoned Tokyo’s ambassador on Thursday to deliver a “strong reprimand” after Abe paid respects at the Yasukuni shrine.

The site honours several high-level officials executed for war crimes after the second world war, a reminder of Japan’s 20th century aggression and a source of bitterness for China and other Asian countries.

“People are getting tired of such futile ‘strong condemnations’,” said an editorial in the Global Times, a paper close to the ruling Communist Party that often strikes a nationalist tone.

“China needs to take appropriate, even slightly excessive countermeasures” or else “be seen as a ‘paper tiger’”, it warned.

“In the eyes of China, Abe, behaving like a political villain, is much like the terrorists and fascists on the commonly seen blacklists.”
Global Times

It suggested barring high-profile Japanese politicians and other officials who went to the shrine from visiting China for five years.

Abe’s visit was the first by an incumbent Japanese prime minister to the inflammatory site since 2006, and came as tensions between the two Asian powers have escalated since last year over a territorial dispute in the East China Sea.

State-run media also excoriated Abe, who has sought to shore up Japan’s military.

“In the eyes of China, Abe, behaving like a political villain, is much like the terrorists and fascists on the commonly seen blacklists,” the Global Times said.

The China Daily called the visit “an intolerable insult” that had “slammed the door to dialogue shut”, adding that “Abe knew it would be an insult. But he does not care”.

It criticised the leader’s “sheer hypocrisy” and “nasty track record”, including “his denial of the aggressive nature of Japanese intrusions during WWII, his lack of remorse for Japan’s historical sins”.

China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi called Abe’s visit “a flagrant provocation against international justice and treads arbitrarily on humanity’s conscience”, a ministry statement said on Thursday.

China and Japan, the world’s second- and third-largest economies, have important trading ties.

But conflict over the East China Sea islands known as the Diaoyus in China and the Senkakus in Japan have soured diplomatic relations since last year.

The controversial visit has been widely condemned around the world.

South Korea's Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Yoo Jin-ryong, called it a deplorable and anachronistic act that damaged ties between the two countries and summoned a top Japanese diplomat in Seoul to protest. He added: "We cannot withhold regret and anger over the visit."

China and South Korea have repeatedly expressed anger in the past over Japanese politicians’ visits to Yasukuni Shrine, where Japanese leaders convicted as war criminals by an Allied tribunal after World War Two are honoured along with those who died in battle.

The two countries have been especially touchy about visits to the shrine by serving Japanese prime ministers, and Abe is the first leader in office to pay homage at Yasukuni in the past seven years.

The U.S. Embassy in Tokyo issued a statement saying Japan’s leadership had “taken an action that will exacerbate tensions” with neighbours.


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Do you know what you are talking about! China 'adopting' Japan's culture? Japanese even incorporates Chinese characters into their written language, and their cultures and customs were adapted from Chinese. Look at their museums and their ancient writings and garments and tell me if they are not Chinese. We travel there because the yen is low.
The US split from the UK in a fair and square battle for independence. Did the US march to the UK and slaughter the inhabitants? A more appropriate analogy if you wish to make one is the slaughter of Jews by the Germans, which Germany is wisely not celebrating or commemorating.
How about Vietnam war?
Birds of a feather flock together. The US is as aggressive now to other countries as Japan was (think Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan), so of course they understand this need for aggression and look after each other.
Agree. Bury them all in the Yasakuni Shrine.
For goodness sake, Japan and Mao are two separate issues. This is about the visit to the Shrine. We can talk about Mao at another forum.
Just because Mao did this and that does not reflect on the validity or otherwise of Japan's atrocities. You are lumping everything together because you can't make a coherent statement outside of your prejudices.
"Japan and Mao are two separate issues"
Not to the tens of millions of Chinese deaths that Mao caused. You can't pick and choose.
No point in mixing arguments. Let's talk about the Cultural Revolution when that is an issue, OK?
So the Cultural Revolution was wrong. And that justifies what the Japanese soldiers did in China?
Since Genghis Khan invaded Europe in 1200s, so it is OK for European countries to split up China in 1800s?
Hail the bulest!
Not all the issues related to PRC we should condemn the CCP! Any government of China will respond to to this unless they want to be overwhelmed by its own people. The two things are very much separated. The point to this confrontation is both country care too much on their" face" instead of the real interests of both countries and this region's future. Big problem of all Asian countries.
I didnt know the Chinese are still receiving aid money from the JPs.. where did u get this info anyway?
'Chinese arrogance and hate mongering'? Where did you see this? Did China initiate this war of words, or was it just reacting to what Japan did? Japan was the aggressor and with this shrine visit, shows no remorse and shows contempt for the feelings of the people it had invaded, looted and killed. But still China is the bad guy? It shows a very poor side of your judgement and prejudices.
'China is on the same road as Japan was in its imperialist days'. Really? Has one Chinese soldier fought in another country, like the US, UK, France, Australia etc?



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