Nanjing draft regulation targets extreme ‘Japanophiles’

Nanjing, the East China’s city that suffered an infamous massacre in 1937, drafted a regulation to punish anyone who glorifies the Japanese invasion, in an apparent response to a series of outrageous online incidents this year.

The draft regulation, which bans behavior including “denying the historical facts of the Nanjing Massacre, insulting victims or survivors of the massacre or heroes who died in the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression (1931-45),” was submitted to legislators on Tuesday, Nanjingbased newspaper Modern Express reported on Tuesday.

Japanese troops captured the city on December 13, 1937. Over six weeks, they killed 300,000 Chinese civilians and unarmed soldiers, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

The draft regulation bans “wearing Japanese World War II army uniforms at national public memorial facilities and publishing such behavior on the internet.”

Violators will be punished by police departments and also held criminally accountable in severe cases, says the draft regulation.

According to the Modern Express, the articles are aimed at preventing such behavior by Chinese people with an extreme admiration for Japan, dubbed jingri on China’s social media, literally “Japanese spirit.”

There are no clear criteria for who can be called a Japanophile. Some Chinese net users have compiled a list, which includes behavior such as refusing to jaywalk.

In an extreme case, a man from Sichuan Province was detained by the police after calling Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe his “daddy” on social media, causing an uproar among those who oppose jingri.

“The draft is essential as glorifying the Japanese invasion and wearing Japanese army uniform are insults to the Chinese nation,” Zhu Lijia, a professor of public management at the Chinese Academy of Governance in Beijing, told the Global Times on Tuesday.

The regulation comes after incidents happened earlier this year, in which young people dressed in Japanese World War II army uniforms spread photos online and provoked outrage among Chinese.

The regulation also asks local authorities to include national public memorial education in textbooks, limits public entertainment activities in national public memorial facilities and states that online streaming in national public memorial facilities must be approved in advance.