Danish queen's Nanking visit a crowning moment for China amid row with Japan
Despite Danish FM saying visit was non-political, queen's visit may encourage Beijing to place Nanjing on world leaders' itineraries as a mark against Japanese aggression
China is expected to encourage more world leaders to visit the Nanking Massacre memorial after the Queen of Denmark’s landmark visit, which mainland analysts say may increase awareness about this period of Chinese history and Japan’s past military aggression.
Margrethe II, accompanied by Danish officials, visited the memorial hall to the Nanking victims in Nanjing, Jiangsu province, yesterday as part of her mission to boost Sino-Danish economic and cultural co-operation.
It came during a fraught period in Sino-Japanese relations, when both sides are locked in territorial disputes and amid concerns that Japan’s increasingly nationalist rhetoric signals a departure from its pacifist constitution. Some Japanese officials have previously denied that the 1937 atrocities took place, in which an estimated 300,000 Chinese died during Japanese occupation.
In a move widely seen as staged, the queen reportedly “bumped into” a massacre survivor, Su Guobao, there.
The queen’s visit set a precedent. In the future, the government will certainly arrange this kind of visit in foreign guests’ schedules
“The queen’s visit set a precedent. In the future, the government will certainly arrange this kind of visit in foreign guests’ schedules,” Zhou Yongsheng, a China Foreign Affairs University professor specialising in Japanese diplomacy, told the South China Morning Post today.