US EditionChina Holds Low-Key Nanjing Massacre Memorial Despite Japan Tensions
The ceremony was subdued amid escalating Beijing-Tokyo tensions over Taiwan, with around 300,000 victims remembered in a brief event without President Xi Jinping.
- On Dec 13, 2025, China held a restrained memorial at the Nanjing Massacre Museum, completed in less than half an hour with doves released before police officers and schoolchildren, while President Xi Jinping did not attend.
- Tensions over Taiwan have prompted sharp exchanges after Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's last month remarks and Tokyo's Yonaguni missile deployment plans.
- Shi Taifeng, head of the Communist Party's organisation department, made less combative remarks referencing Xi Jinping's September parade speech, while the Eastern Theatre Command of the People's Liberation Army posted graphic wartime imagery on social media accounts of state military bodies.
- Beijing responded by summoning Japan's ambassador, writing to the United Nations, urging citizens to avoid travel to Japan, renewing bans on Japanese seafood imports and cultural events, while the Japanese embassy in China recently issued a safety advisory for Friday's anniversary.
- Long ago, on December 13, 1937, Japanese forces seized Nanjing; China says around 300,000 were killed and 20,000 women raped, while a tribunal put the toll at 142,000 under President Xi Jinping's memorialisation.
79 Articles
79 Articles
Feature: Standing amid atrocities: John Rabe and his record of Nanjing Massacre
BERLIN, Dec. 13 (Xinhua) -- In the winter of 1937, invading Japanese troops captured Nanjing, then the Chinese capital, and over the course of six weeks, they proceeded to kill approximately 300,000 Chinese civilians and unarmed soldiers in one of the most barbaric episodes of World War II. Read full story
China holds national memorial for Nanjing Massacre victims, calling for remembrance of history
The 12th national memorial day was observed on Saturday to honor the 300,000 victims killed by Japanese troops during the Nanjing Massacre, as this year marks the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II.
Thousands of people took part in Nanjing in the homage ceremony to the victims of the 1937 massacre, while Beijing-Tokyo relations escalate after the Japanese Prime Minister's statements on Taiwan.
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