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Jane Cai

As Beijing prepared to mark the 88th anniversary of the Nanking massacre, China’s military mouthpiece warned on Friday that provocative actions by right-wing Japanese politicians risked plunging Asia into peril.
PLA Daily published the warning in a commentary the day before sirens will sound out across Nanjing, the capital of eastern Jiangsu province, at 10.01am during national commemorations led by the Communist Party’s Central Committee and the State Council.
According to China’s official estimate, more than 300,000 civilians and soldiers were killed in the six weeks after Japanese troops entered Nanking, now called Nanjing, on December 13, 1937. Japan disputes the number of fatalities.
In the commentary titled “Never Allow the Tragedies of History to Repeat Themselves”, author Xu Yizhen took aim at Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s remarks to Japan’s parliament last month.
In those remarks, Takaichi suggested that a Taiwan contingency could be a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan, a statement that the PLA Daily commentary described as a blatant historical inversion that revived the spectre of militarism.

Xu said the Japanese leader had “openly turned back the wheel of history: first by absurdly claiming that a Taiwan contingency could constitute an existential crisis for Japan and then by trying to stir up” the notion of the island’s undetermined status.
That notion, which asserts that the ultimate sovereignty of Taiwan is legally unresolved, is strongly opposed by Beijing.
Beijing sees Taiwan as part of China to be reunited by force if necessary. Most countries, including the US and its treaty ally Japan, do not recognise Taiwan as an independent state. But Washington is opposed to any attempt to take the self-ruled island by force and is committed to supplying it with weapons.
In the commentary, Xu wrote that “any appeasement or tolerance of these provocative moves by Japanese right-wing politicians will only allow the ghost of militarism to rise again and once more place the peoples of Asia in peril”.
“All countries have both the responsibility and the obligation to join hands to stop any attempt to revive militarism and fascism and to jointly safeguard the hard-won fruits of victory” of the second world war, he added.
Takaichi’s remarks ignited a full-blown diplomatic crisis, plunging Sino-Japanese ties to a new low and triggering a series of retaliatory measures from Beijing, which considers the remarks to be interference in its internal affairs and a departure from Tokyo’s long-term policy of strategic ambiguity on Taiwan.
Tensions flared again with a mid-air stand-off between Chinese and Japanese fighter jets over the weekend.
Japan accused Chinese J-15 aircraft from the Liaoning aircraft carrier of locking fire-control radar onto Japanese F-15 jets while the carrier fleet was conducting exercises in international airspace near Okinawa. Beijing accused Tokyo of deliberately disrupting its normal and lawful military exercises and escalating tensions.
Meanwhile, on Friday, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said the Nanking massacre remained “one of the darkest pages in human history”.
“We will never allow the right-wing forces in Japan to reverse the course of history, never allow external forces to interfere with China’s Taiwan region, and never allow the resurgence of Japanese militarism,” Guo said.
The weekend observances follow China’s commemorations earlier in the year for the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II and the global victory against fascism.
Multiple events are scheduled to be held in Jiangsu on Saturday, including visits to surviving victims, an event at a former refuge shelter, the release of newly collected historical artefacts and materials, and a documentary exhibition of the atrocities, according to the provincial government.
In Hong Kong, Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu is expected to attend a memorial ceremony and lay a wreath in honour of the victims.
Simultaneous memorial activities will take place at anti-Japanese war-related patriotic education bases across China. In total, 100 primary schools around the country will sit the 2025 “Learn History, Recite Peace – Joint Reading” online class to remember the history, China News Service reported on Friday.


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Chinese military mouthpiece’s commentary comes as Beijing marks 88th anniversary of Nanking massacre amid full-blown diplomatic crisis with Tokyo


Chinese military mouthpiece’s commentary comes as Beijing marks 88th anniversary of Nanking massacre amid full-blown diplomatic crisis with Tokyo.


Provocative Japanese actions risk plunging Asia into peril: PLA Daily

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Chinese military mouthpiece’s commentary comes as Beijing marks 88th anniversary of Nanking massacre amid full-blown diplomatic crisis with Tokyo

Chinese military mouthpiece’s commentary comes as Beijing marks 88th anniversary of Nanking massacre amid full-blown diplomatic crisis with Tokyo