China holds low-key Nanking massacre memorial service as Beijing seeks to warm ties with Tokyo

President Xi Jinping absent from annual event on Sunday to commemorate killing of up to 300,000 Chinese by Japanese troops in 1937

‘We look forward to building a China-Japan relationship that meets the requirements of the new era,’ Politburo member Chen Xi says at service

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Sunday’s memorial service marked the 83rd anniversary of the Nanking massacre. Photo: AP

Published: 5:30pm, 13 Dec 2020Updated: 11:17pm, 13 Dec 2020

China on Sunday held a solemn but low profile memorial service to mark the 83rd anniversary of the Nanking massacre by Japanese troops during World War II, a bitter source of grievance between the Asian neighbours as Beijing and Tokyo seek to strengthen ties ahead of a new US administration.

Neither Chinese President Xi Jinping nor any of the other six members of the Communist Party’s Politburo Standing Committee – it’s top leaders – were present at the service in Nanjing, the eastern city’s modern-day name.

Speaking at the service, which was not broadcast live on state television, Chen Xi, the head of the Communist Party’s Organisation Department and a Politburo member, said history should never be forgotten but called for joint efforts with Japan to push forward a healthy and cooperative relationship.

“We look forward to building a China-Japan relationship that meets the requirements of the new era, and are committed to promoting the development of relations between the two countries in the right direction of peace, friendship and cooperation,” he said, according to a transcript published online by Xinhua.

Pigeons fly over a crowd of people at the annual commemoration of the 1937 Nanking massacre in eastern China on Sunday. Photo: Xinhua

According to China’s estimate, more than 300,000 civilians and soldiers were killed in the six weeks after Japanese troops entered Nanking, then the national capital, on December 13, 1937.

A national day of commemoration was introduced in 2014, with Xi attending the inaugural event and in 2017, to mark the 80th anniversary.

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