New | Is he talking war or peace? Shinzo Abe comments on 'pre-war UK, Germany' irk Chinese netizens

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s comments during his trip to the World Economic Forum comparing Sino-Japanese tensions with Britain and Germany’s relationship prior to the first world war has sparked heated discussions within the Chinese online community.

In response to a question posed by the Financial Times in Davos on Wednesday night about whether a war between China and Japan was “conceivable”, Abe compared the tensions between the two countries with that of Britain and Germany prior to 1914, who despite having a strong trading relationship were not prevented from going to war.

Abe was quoted by the blog as observing that China and Japan were now in a “similar situation”.

Abe’s remarks on Britain and Germany echoed the oft-quoted Chinese description of Sino-Japanese relations as “politically cold and economically hot,” outlining the phenomenon that while the two countries maintain a thriving trade volume which reached US$312.5 billion in 2013, tensions between China and Japan are currently the greatest they have been in years.

A bitter row between the two nations over disputed islets in the East China Sea continues with frequent reports of confrontations between military ships and scrambled jets. The relationship has also been damaged by rows over historic issues during the second world war, and more recently the Japanese leader’s controversial visit in December to the Yasukuni Shrine, a shrine that honours Japan’s war dead, including indicted war criminals.

He also called for military restraint in Asia. “We must ... restrain military expansion in Asia, which could otherwise go unchecked,” he said.