China’s Anti-Japanese Propaganda: Does Beijing Want to Dampen Efforts to Repair Relations?

Editorial

15:00 JST, August 19, 2025

China is trying to stir up patriotic sentiment by emphasizing this year as the “80th anniversary of victory in the war of resistance against Japan.” These efforts contain a notable amount of elements meant to stir up anti-Japanese sentiment, and the negative impact they will have on Japan-China relations is nothing but worrisome.

Since the start of this summer, a number of films about the war of resistance have been released in China. In late July, a film was released about the 1937 Nanjing Incident involving the former Japanese military.

State-run media have been reporting daily on the box office success of the films. It is clear that the government is promoting them. On Chinese social media, video clips such as one in which a child repeatedly hits the Japanese archipelago in a map after watching the film have been widely shared.

A film focusing on Unit 731, a unit of the former Japanese military that engaged in the research and development of biological weapons, will be released on Sept. 18. This date marks the anniversary of the 1931 Liutiaohu Incident, which led to the Manchurian Incident.

This will inevitably stir up anti-Japanese sentiment among the Chinese people.

On July 7, the 88th anniversary of the Marco Polo Bridge Incident that triggered the Sino-Japanese War, Chinese President Xi Jinping visited a memorial facility commemorating the Chinese Communist Party’s military operations against Japan.

A BRICS summit led by China and Russia was held in Brazil on the same day, but Xi did not attend. This was believed to indicate that the Chinese president attached importance to the anti-Japanese events.

It is concerning that a series of incidents targeting Japanese nationals have occurred in China since last year.

In late July, a Japanese woman was injured after being struck with what appeared to be a rock when she was with her child at a subway station in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province. Chinese authorities arrested a suspect but have not disclosed details such as whether the attack deliberately targeted Japanese nationals.

In another incident on Sept. 18 last year, a Japanese boy was fatally stabbed by a Chinese man in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province. The perpetrator was executed without his motive being disclosed.

Amid such circumstances, it is understandable that concern is growing within the Japanese community in China that unforeseen incidents could occur if anti-Japanese propaganda leads to a further heightening of anti-Japanese sentiment.

At the same time, China has been moving to repair relations with Japan since last year, anticipating escalated tensions with the United States.

China has lifted the ban on imports of Japanese seafood products that it imposed in response to the release of treated water from Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, Inc.’s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, and has also implemented an agreement to resume imports of Japanese beef, which had been suspended since 2001. It also resumed the visa waiver program for short-term stays for Japanese nationals.

However, if the safety of Japanese nationals cannot be ensured, it is unlikely that there will be increased people-to-people exchanges between Japan and China or the strengthening of economic cooperation with Japan that China desires.

(From The Yomiuri Shimbun, Aug. 19, 2025)