China and Japan ramp up rhetoric as relations worsen

BEIJING — The last exhibit room at the Chinese People’s Anti-Japanese War Memorial Hall in west Beijing opens with a panel proclaiming: “Chinese and Japanese People Should Be Friends Forever.” But in recent months, curators at the museum dedicated to Japan’s 1931-45 occupation of the mainland have tacked on an awkward postscript that highlights just how unfriendly things have gotten between the two governments lately.

One new panel denounces Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s December 2013 trip to a shrine that honors Japan’s combat dead, including some senior war criminals. Another poster highlights China’s recent declaration of two new national days of commemoration related to Japan’s World War II invasion, known here as the Anti-Japanese War.