China warns vs militarism on Nanjing massacre anniversary
China on Saturday warned against any moves to revive past militarism during an event marking the 88th anniversary of the 1937 massacre in Nanjing committed by Japanese troops, alluding to Beijing-Tokyo tensions that have simmered since Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s recent remarks on a Taiwan contingency.
At the memorial ceremony, Shi Taifeng, head of the ruling Communist Party’s organization department, said that any attempt to revive militarism and challenge the postwar international order is “doomed to fail,” without naming Takaichi.
The Nanjing commemoration also comes amid China’s rapid and massive military expansion and aggressiveness in the South China and East China Seas, especially around democratically governed Taiwan.
Military drills far from its shores have also led to Chinese forces brushing against Australia and most recently with Japan where its warplanes locked radars on Japanese fighter jets.
With this year marking 80 years since Japan’s surrender in World War II, China has held various memorial events, including a military parade in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square on Sept. 3.
‘Darkest page’
Participants of the service held at the Memorial Hall of the Victims in Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders observed a minute of silence while sirens were heard across the Jiangsu Province city.
The Nanjing massacre was a “horrendous crime committed by Japanese militarists” that marked “the darkest page in human history,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said at a press conference on Friday.
“Japanese militarists’ war of aggression against China and other Asian countries under the pretext of a so-called survival-threatening situation and untold crimes against humanity are nothing but a disgrace in the history of human civilization,” Guo added.
Beijing has ramped up pressure on Tokyo since Takaichi said in parliament on Nov. 7 that a Taiwan emergency could be a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan that may lead to action from the country’s defense forces in support of the United States.
China regards the self-ruled island as part of its territory and insists that the Taiwan issue is purely an “internal affair.
In 2014, China designated Dec. 13 as a national memorial day, with President Xi Jinping attending the annual ceremony that year and again in 2017 on the occasion of the 80th anniversary.
China claims the Japanese army slaughtered over 300,000 people in the city, formerly called Nanking.
