UpdateChina must retaliate for Japanese prime minister’s war shrine visit: official media
Official media warns China will become a ‘paper tiger’ if countermeasures against Japan are not taken over Yasukuni visit
China must take “excessive” counter-measures after Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s controversial war shrine visit, state-run media urged on Friday, reflecting the smouldering resentment among Chinese at its onetime invader.
China expressed its opposition and summoned Tokyo’s ambassador on Thursday to deliver a “strong reprimand” after Abe paid respects at the Yasukuni shrine.
The site honours several high-level officials executed for war crimes after the second world war, a reminder of Japan’s 20th century aggression and a source of bitterness for China and other Asian countries.
“People are getting tired of such futile ‘strong condemnations’,” said an editorial in the Global Times, a paper close to the ruling Communist Party that often strikes a nationalist tone.
“China needs to take appropriate, even slightly excessive countermeasures” or else “be seen as a ‘paper tiger’”, it warned.
“In the eyes of China, Abe, behaving like a political villain, is much like the terrorists and fascists on the commonly seen blacklists.”
It suggested barring high-profile Japanese politicians and other officials who went to the shrine from visiting China for five years.