On Thursday, Japan prime minister Shinzo Abe stunned the world by defying everyone - including the EU and the US whose embassy [6]sent a tersely worded letter in which is said that it is "disappointed that Japan's leadership has taken an action that will exacerbate tensions with Japan's neighbors" - when he visited the Yasukuni Shrine where Japanese leaders convicted as war criminals by an Allied tribunal after World War Two are honored along with those who died in battle, for the first time in 7 years. The response was fast and furious. Below, courtesy of Reuters [7], is a snapshot of the morning after in the Chinese media. The reviews of Abe's action were not glowing.
In an editorial headlined "Abe's paying homage to the devils makes people outraged", the Chinese military's People's Liberation Army Daily said Abe's action had "seriously undermined the stability of the region".
"On one hand, Abe is paying homage to war criminals, and on the other hand, he talks about improving relations with China, South Korea and other countries," the newspaper said. "It is simply a sham, a mouthful of lies.
"Today, the Chinese people have the ability to defend peace and they have a greater ability to stop all provocative militarism."
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said Abe's visit to the shrine "has already attracted the Chinese people's ire and denunciation".
"How can a person who is not willing to face up to their own history, to facts, win the trust of the international community or cause people to believe he has a role to play in maintaining regional and global peace and stability?" Hua said at a daily news briefing.
In a separate commentary published under the pen name "Zhong Sheng", or "Voice of China", the Communist Party's People's Daily said: "History tells us that if people do not correctly understand the evils of the fascist war, cannot reflect on war crimes, a country can never (achieve) true rejuvenation."
The Global Times, an influential nationalistic tabloid owned by the People's Daily, urged China to shut its door to Abe and other Japanese officials who have visited the shrine this year.
"If condemnations are China's only recourse, then the nation is giving up its international political rights easily," the newspaper said. "Ineffective countermeasures will make China be seen as a 'paper tiger' in the eyes of the rest of the world.
"In the eyes of China, Abe, behaving like a political villain, is much like the terrorists and fascists on the commonly seen blacklists."
A survey on China's Sina Weibo microblogging site on Thursday showed that almost 70 percent of respondents would support a boycott of Japanese goods, with many users expressing outrage at the shrine visit. The survey was later removed.
And yet, all of this appears set to blow over since China, like America, is now more focused on daily noise: the topic was not one of the most talked about on Weibo, with people being more distracted by the latest celebrity gossip and the upcoming new year.