Hayato Kato, a Japanese vlogger with 1.9 million followers, is known for his humorous videos about his experiences in China, where he has resided for several years.
However, on 26 July, he caught them off guard with a serious one.
"I just saw a film about the Nanjing Massacre," he remarked, mentioning the six-week assault by the Japanese army in Nanjing at the end of 1937, which, according to some estimates, resulted in over 300,000 deaths among civilians and Chinese troops. Approximately 20,000 women are said to have been raped.
Dead To Rights, also known as Nanjing Photo Studio, is an ensemble story centered on a group of civilians taking refuge from Japanese soldiers in a photography studio. Having become a box office success, it is the first in a series of Chinese films depicting the atrocities of Japanese occupation, being launched to commemorate the 80th anniversary of World War II's conclusion. However, a feeling of incomplete history – frequently heightened by Beijing – endures, driving both remembrance and resentment.
Speaking in Chinese on Douyin, China's version of TikTok, Kato described moments from the film: "People were queued by the river when the shooting started… A baby, the same age as my daughter, cried in her mother's embrace. A soldier from Japan lunged ahead, seized her, and slammed her onto the ground.
He mentioned that he had witnessed numerous individuals on the Japanese internet disputing the occurrence of the Nanjing Massacre, including notable figures and even politicians. "If we refuse to acknowledge it, this will occur once more," he said, encouraging the Japanese to view the films and "understand the darker aspects of their past."
The video rapidly turned into one of his most famous, receiving over 670,000 likes in merely two weeks.
However, the remarks are more negative. The most popular quote references an iconic line from the film, spoken by a Chinese citizen to a Japanese soldier: "We are not friends." "We never existed."
For China, Japan's harsh military actions and occupation rank among the most tragic parts of its history, with the massacre in Nanjing, then the capital, being an even greater injury.
The resentment has grown due to the conviction that Japan has never completely acknowledged its wrongdoings in the territories it occupied, including not only China, but also Korea, what was then Malaya, the Philippines, and Indonesia. One of the most painful areas of dispute centers around "comfort women" - roughly 200,000 women who were sexually assaulted and compelled to serve in Japanese military brothels. Even now, the survivors continue to seek an apology and compensation.
In his video, Kato appears to recognize that it’s not a discussed topic in Japan: “Regrettably, these anti-Japanese war films are not publicly screened in Japan, and Japanese individuals show no interest in viewing them.”
When the Japanese Emperor declared on 15 August that he would capitulate, his nation had already suffered a heavy toll – over 100,000 people had died in airstrikes on Tokyo, before two atomic bombs obliterating Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Japan's loss, however, was celebrated in many areas of Asia, where the Imperial Japanese Army had taken millions of lives. For them, 15 August signifies both liberation and enduring trauma – in Korea, the day is known as 'gwangbokjeol', meaning the return of light.
"Although the military conflict has concluded, the struggle over history persists," states Professor Gi-Wook Shin from Stanford University, clarifying that the two parties recall those years in contrasting ways, and these discrepancies contribute to the ongoing tension. The Chinese perceive Japanese aggression as a crucial and destructive event in their history, while Japanese narratives emphasize their own suffering—the devastation from the atomic bombs and the subsequent rebuilding efforts.
"A Chinese man who has lived in Japan for 15 years and prefers to stay unnamed states, 'The people I know in Japan don't often discuss it.'"
"They regard it as a historical event, and the nation doesn't genuinely recognize it, as they also consider themselves as victims."
He considers himself a patriot, yet he claims that this hasn't created personal difficulties for him since their unwillingness to discuss it leads them to "steer clear of such sensitive issues."
"Some think the Japanese military assisted China in establishing a new order, leading to conflicts during this process." Certainly, some individuals recognize that it was indeed an invasion.
China battled Japan for eight years, ranging from Manchuria in the northeast to Chongqing in the southwest. Estimates of the number of Chinese fatalities vary between 10 and 20 million. The government of Japan reports that approximately 480,000 of its troops perished during that period.
Those years have been extensively recorded in acclaimed literature and films – they were also the focus of Nobel Prize winner Mo Yan's creations.
That era is now being reassessed within a framework that prioritizes patriotism as key to its goals: "national rejuvenation" is the term Xi Jinping uses for his vision of the Chinese dream. Although the Party rigorously censors its own history, including the Tiananmen Square massacre and recent suppressions, it promotes the remembrance of an earlier past involving an external adversary.
Xi even changed the date of the war with Japan's beginning – the Chinese government now recognizes the initial incursions into Manchuria in 1931, rendering it a 14-year war instead of eight years of outright conflict.
During his leadership, Beijing has been observing the conclusion of World War Two on a larger scale. On 3 September, the date on which Japan officially surrendered, a significant military parade will occur in Tiananmen Square.
In September, an eagerly awaited new release will concentrate on the infamous Unit 731, a division of the Japanese Army known for performing deadly human experiments in occupied Manchuria. The release date – 18 September – marks the day Japan made its initial attempt to invade Manchuria.
This is in addition to Dongji Rescue, a movie based on true events of Chinese fishermen rescuing hundreds of British POWs during Japanese attacks; and Mountains and Rivers Bearing Witness, a documentary produced by a state-owned studio focusing on Chinese resistance.
And it appears they are hitting a sensitive spot.
"That single generation waged a war for three and faced hardships for three." "Honor to the martyrs," a well-liked post from RedNote on Nanjing Photo Studio states.
"We are not friends...", the iconic quote from the film, "is more than just a dialogue" between the two lead characters, states a well-liked review that has garnered over 10,000 likes on Weibo.
It is also from millions of regular Chinese individuals to Japan. "They have not offered a genuine apology, continue to idolize [the war criminals], and are altering historical narratives – nobody will regard them as allies," the remark states, alluding to certain Japanese right-wing individuals' contemptuous comments.
Tokyo has offered apologies, but many Chinese feel they are not sufficient.
"Japan continues to deliver a confusing message," says Prof Shin, pointing to cases where officials have contradicted one another in their comments regarding Japan's wartime past.
For many years in Chinese history lessons, students have viewed an image of the former Chancellor of West Germany, Willy Brandt, kneeling at a memorial for the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1970. The Chinese anticipate a comparable action from Japan.
However, this hasn't always been true.
Even after Japan's surrender in 1945, the unrest in China continued. Over the next three years, the ruling Nationalist Kuomintang, which was the primary force of Chinese opposition to Japan, engaged in a civil war with the Communist Party led by Mao Zedong.
The conflict concluded with Mao's triumph and the Kuomintang's withdrawal to Taiwan. Mao, prioritizing the establishment of a communist state, sidestepped addressing Japanese war atrocities. Observances marked the Party's triumph and condemned the Kuomintang. He also required Japan's backing in the global arena. Tokyo was, in fact, among the earliest major powers to acknowledge his regime.
Not until the 1980s - following Mao's death - did the Japanese occupation resurface to plague the ties between Beijing and Tokyo. At that time, Japan was a prosperous Western partner with a thriving economy. Changes to Japanese textbooks started to ignite controversy, as China and South Korea accused Japan of downplaying its wartime crimes. China was only starting to open up, while South Korea was shifting from military governance to a democratic system.
As Chinese officials distanced themselves from Mao and his harmful legacy, the impact of the Japanese assault emerged as a shared story for the Communist Party, notes Yinan He, associate professor of international relations at Lehigh University in the United States.
"Following the Cultural Revolution, the majority of Chinese citizens became disenchanted with communism," she informed the BBC. "With communism losing its attraction, nationalism is essential." Japan is an easy target as it is the latest external aggressor.
She depicts a "choreographed portrayal of history," where remembrances of 1945 frequently minimize the roles of the US and the Kuomintang, and are met with increasing examination of Japan's official position regarding its wartime behavior.
The refusal to acknowledge war crimes has not aided the situation—leading right-wing figures in Japan deny the occurrence of the Nanjing massacre and the forced sexual slavery of many women by Japanese soldiers—and recent official visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, which commemorates Japan's war dead, including convicted war criminals, exacerbate the issue.
The animosity between China and Japan has affected daily life as online nationalism surges - individuals from both nations have faced assaults in each other's territories. A schoolboy from Japan was murdered in Shenzhen last year.
China's economic growth and assertiveness both regionally and globally have altered the relationship between the two nations once more. It has eclipsed Japan as an international force. According to Prof He, the optimal period for achieving closure – the 1970s, when the nations were more connected – has gone by.
"They just mentioned, let's overlook that, let's put that aside." "They've never addressed the past – and now the issue has returned to trouble them once more."
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