China, with eye on Japan, seeks WW2 focus for Xi during Germany visit

China has increasingly contrasted Germany and its public contrition for the Nazi regime to Japan, where repeated official apologies for wartime suffering are sometimes undercut by contradictory comments by conservative politicians.

Like today for example with the announcement that the government is going to "re-examine" the comfort-women apology.

China are so used to shoveling propaganda to their own citizens, they're now trying to do it to the rest of the world...

And Japan still gives them financial assistance every year, smh.....

Gernany is being used as a propaganda tool. I don't blame them for not wanting to go there, that kind of thing ended for them 70 years ago.

Maybe China needs to read Dale Carnegie:

“If You Want to Gather Honey, Don't Kick Over the Beehive”

China doesn't give a rat's ass about the holocaust. They're annoyingly and overusing the Germany-Japan comparison to the annoyance of everyone and now especially Germany.

This is akin to throwing salt on Germany's very painful wound that they themselves would like to put behind them. No one likes a third, unrelated party, to bring up one's own painful past.

I hope the German chancellor tells Xi directly and publicly to stop this propaganda push and embarrass the hell out of China.

Forunately Germans said a big 'NO' to Chinese wanting them to blame Japan for WWII. Good for them!

@sfjp330

You have lost all your credibility if you actually claim present-day Japan is as bad as China. Japan isn't no utopia but China is far worse in terms of pretty much everything.

how ridiculous!

China should stop involving the neutral party into the bickering. Germany doesn't know how to handle the situation.

China sure has a contentious agenda. But are Xi's advisers and is his embassy candidly telling him this is not going to be a triumphant tour?

Hide SuzukiFeb. 25, 2014 - 10:07AM JST @sfjp330 You have lost all your credibility if you actually claim present-day Japan is as bad as China. Japan isn't no utopia but China is far worse in terms of pretty much everything.

If China is that bad, why do Japan have 20,000 companies there? And how many Chinese companies are there in Japan? By the way, China trade accounts for 21 percent of total GDP of Japan. For China, less than 9 percent.

Leadership on both sides of the issue are being completely and utterly childish about the entire matter. China needs to stuff a sock in it about Germany's behavior during and after the war. It has no right whatsoever to appropriate the suffering caused by Germany in WWII, and its subsequent road to redemption, in this infatile tit-for-tat B.S. that beng passed off as mature foreign policy between Japan and China. It would, I believe, be of significant diplomatic value if Germany were to tell China just this in no uncertain terms.

(buries his head in his hands) For eff sake China. You have taken acting childish to a whole new effing level. This is ridiculous. Germany doesn't want to talk about WWII anymore. They've apologised for their actions in the past, Britain and the other countries affected by the Nazi's have maturely forgiven them, and Germany has moved on, changing its ways and making itself better. Knock it off China. But since you want to compare Germany with Japan, let's do that shall we? Japan has also apologised for its actions during WWII, repeatedly, they have attempted to move on, maintaining their pacifist constitution. America has dropped the issue, yet China and Korea refuse to accept Japan's apology. As far as I'm aware, Germany has not participated in a war since its defeat, and neither has Japan. Both are respectable countries, both are desirable tourist destinations, and both are strong economies (though Japan is the stronger economy it seems). So, what do you think of that China? Do you still want to compare Japan to Germany? Because I just showed you what you refuse to see.

I can't wait for Chancellor Angela Merkel to turn around to Xi Jinping and tell him to leave the past in the past and not drag up WWII in some petty immature argument. This is going to bite Xi on the backside, and a well deserved bite it will be.

Xi is a throwback to the days of Mao, when the Chinese government dispensed its political propaganda with shovels instead of chopsticks. What's most annoying is that he seems to think the rest of the world is as dumb as he is and will swallow the crappe he flings at them.

Xi wants to use the trip as an anti-Japanese propaganda platform.

I wonder how he would feel if Merkel in turn insisted that Tibet be a main topic of the visit. A trip to the Tibetan culture center perhaps, after his Neue Wache stunt? Now that would be interesting...

China is doing what they do best: washing with dirt! And now they're trying to extend their expertise into international areas. It shows once again that you cannot trust the CCP as when it comes down to it they will use every dirty method available at their disposal.

Well the plan for the visit in Germany is an interesting move from China. However I think China will discover that the Germany has no interest to desperately cling to the past. If I understand Angela well she will give Xi a polite rejection by either stating the obvious, declining to comment or just pretend to agree when Xi makes a statement. Maybe China will learn something.

Xi is a sh*t-stirring waste of space... it seems that the only foreign policy he has is to shame Japan. People in glass houses and all that comes to mind.

@sfjp330

Let me understand, what your saying is that 168 reps of J-goverment and PM Abe has right to pray for 14 class A and millions of JIA at Yasukuni? And Japan is living in the present with peace? Are you kidding? By the way if Japanese are enjoying good life, why do your citizens commit over 30K suicides a year for 15 year straight?

First off, the vast majority of soldiers honoured at Yasukuni are NOT war criminals, in the same way that German soldiers from WW2 in war cemeteries were not all Nazis. So how do YOU know who Abe is praying to? Can you see inside his mind with your amazing super powers?

You suicide comment is low... I mean snake belly low. Is that how you get your kicks over there? Laughing every time someone with mental health issues takes their own life?

I pity you.

sfjp330,

Let me understand, what your saying is that 168 reps of J-goverment and PM Abe has right to pray for 14 class A and millions of JIA at Yasukuni? And Japan is living in the present with peace? Are you kidding?

The democratically elected representatives of the Japanese Diet are also free-willed, constitutionally protected citizens of Japan. They have as much right to worship at Yasukuni as anyone else in Japan does. That there happen to be Class A war criminals enshrined there does not ipso facto mean they are being specifically worshipped to. There are currently 2.46 million victims of wars involving Japan that include but are not limited to nurses, teachers, doctors, lawyers, mothers, fathers, and children who died as a result of war. The shrine is not reserved to only Japanese citizens. There are 27,863 Taiwanese and 21,181 Koreans enshrined also as a sign of deferential respect for their loss of life in the face of war.

So please don't sit there and whinge like a petulant child about 26 Class A war criminals-- representing a mere 0.105 percent of the total number of names enshrined at Yasukuni -- as if that is the ONLY possible reason Japanese lawmakers visit the shrine. You -- and by extention -- no country in the world has any right whatsoever to dictate to another country how its citizens may remember their dead. Everytime lawmakers visit, it's a fairly strong statement that they feel the same as I do: It's none of your business who visits the shrine.

By the way if Japanese are enjoying good life, why do your citizens commit over 30K suicides a year for 15 year straight?

Being blatantly obnoxious doesn't make your argument any stronger. It weakens it with childish immaturity.

@sfjp330

It's all about Japan continuing playing the victim card and nothing else is allowed.

I just wet myself laughing at that statement. Do you have any idea what 'irony' means?

All the nations that Germany fought against in WWII have forgiven them and moved on. In fact, the very same can be said for Japan. The only two nations that have a fixation on Japan and WWII are China (PRC) which didn't even exist until AFTER WWII, and South Korea which also didn't exist until after WWII and in fact were part of the Japanese Empire. Note that the "China" that actually fought Japan; Republic of China (Taiwan) does not harbor a fixation on WWII.

I believe Xi also understands that continuing to stereotype modern Germany as nazi-germany by bringing the old topic up can be seen as politically and personally insensitive or even offensive. If Xi plays this card in the propaganda war with Abe he is certainly willing to risk a lot.

@LFRAgain & Thunderbirds2, First off, the vast majority of soldiers honoured at Yasukuni are NOT war criminals, in the same way that German soldiers from WW2 in war cemeteries were not all Nazis.

How can you compare? Do you see Chancellor Merkel or 168 German Goverment reps going to war cemetaries of German soldiers? No. Maybe millions of Japanse citizens still believe in what Abe and 168 of these Japan lawmakers support for the past action by their military. In 1937 Japanese soldiers systematically raped, tortured and murdered estimated more than quarter million civilians. This was more than killed in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined, and more than the combined civilian losses of Britain, France and Belgium in the whole of WWII. . If these lawmakers are doing the right thing, why has your emperor refused to go to pray for these 14 class A?

Chinese men were used for bayonet practice and in decapitation contests and many thousands women were raped. Many Japanese soldiers went beyond rape to disembowel women, slice off their breasts, nail them alive to walls. Fathers were forced to rape their daughters, and sons their mothers, as other family members watched. Not only did live burials, castration, the carving of organs, and the roasting of people become routine, but more diabolical tortures were practiced. So sickening was the spectacle that even the Nazis in the city were horrified. No wonder these lawmakers still go to Yasukuni.

The real message of the war criminals being enshrined at Yakasuni is that no matter what you do, no matter how much suffering you inflict, if you have Japanese blood in your veins you are ok. On the other hand if you are foreigner, no matter how much they have suffered it is not important, you are not Japanese. Considering the suffering inflicted on neighboring Asian countries by Japan is it so hard to call them the 'invasions' that they are rather than 'advances'? If Hiroshima and Nagasaki are crimes then surely Japan's wartime actions are also crimes, why is it so easy for Japanese people to acknowledge A-bomb victims and so hard to acknowledge Asian victims of Japan's wartime aggression? Simple, The A-bomb victims were Japanese and therefore important and the others were foreign and therefore less than human and unimportant. That is the underlying fact that is hard to move beyond that for Japan.

@sfjp330

"why do Japan have 20,000 companies there? "

huh ? Just because China sucks doesn't mean we shouldn't do business there.

What's your point ? You make absolutely no sense

Hide Suzuki Jan. 22, 2014 - 08:27AM JST Brain washed Chinese people like you are the reason why the world dislikes your country. If you think you can change everyone's opinions like your government controls your people, then you are sadly mistaken. huh ? Just because China sucks doesn't mean we shouldn't do business there. What's your point ? You make absolutely no sense

No wonder Japan's international relations don't improve with the inflexable attitude of typical Japanese.

WTF!? Red China laying a "Guilt-Trip" on Germany ? When will these crying commies grow up ?

Koreans can't fault Japan because "Korea was a part of Japan"? Wow, that gives a new meaning to the word 'absurd'. What about the thousands of years Koreans were not part of Japan, not second-class Japanese nationals, before the 20th century -- do those count? Korea was never part of Japan until Japan bust in and took over willy-nilly, much against the will of the Koreans, for 36 brutal, exploitive years. And "South Korea didn't exist until after WWII"? Come to think of it, ultimate blame for the division of Korea into two countries can be squarely laid at the feet of Imperial Japan.

Germany to China: "Uh, no.... Get over it, dude."