Published on: 2026-05-19
Source: The People’s Republic of China in Russian –
An important disclaimer is at the bottom of this article.
Recently, a widely publicized international resonance was caused by a “popular post” on platform X. A certain Japanese user complained that his daughter, upon learning about the Nanking Massacre at an international school, returned home feeling guilty. The outraged father stated that he intended to “boycott international education” and immediately tried to “correct” his daughter’s views, using “historical materials” distributed by Japanese right-wing forces.
Even more striking was that in the comments many Japanese users supported his position. Some denied the atrocities of the Japanese army, calling the study of this history “brainwashing of children,” while others claimed that historical evidence of the crimes of the Japanese army and materials from international tribunals are “forgeries.”
Japan committed aggression against all its neighboring countries — this is an indisputable historical fact. China endured the longest period of Japanese invasion and suffered the heaviest losses. The Nanking Massacre — a monstrous crime that took the lives of more than 300,000 Chinese — remains one of the darkest pages in the modern history of the Chinese nation and world human history.The fact that some Japanese users openly try to “whitewash” these crimes on a public platform shows how deeply right-wing sentiments have taken root in Japanese society and how distorted the historical education in the country remains.
In response to such statements, users from different countries around the world could not remain on the sidelines and actively joined the “online discussion.” Users from the Republic of Korea criticized Japan’s decades-long practice of arbitrarily revising the content of history textbooks. Users from Indonesia spoke about the tragic fate of their relatives who survived cruel treatment by Japanese soldiers. Australian users published archival wartime photos, accompanied by comments about the brutality of the Japanese army.Users from Germany also asked the question: why can’t Japan look as openly at its own history as Germany has? What future can a country have that is unable to acknowledge its own historical crimes?
At the end of March, the X platform updated its content distribution algorithm: instead of the previous distribution by regions and languages, a system of global cross-regional coverage without explicit restrictions was introduced, and the “translate with one click” function effectively eliminated the language barrier. Now, when the platform detects an increase in the popularity of tweets in Japanese, users around the world can almost instantly access these publications.In other words, the former “information bubble”, in which a part of the Japanese internet space existed for a long time, suddenly came under large-scale external attention and cross-assessment. As “hot” publications in Japanese one after another spilled over into the global information space, many users began to perceive modern Japanese society in a new way.As one internet user noted, Japan has invested huge amounts over many years in shaping its international image, but after such statements became accessible to the global audience, this image suffered a serious blow.
It was also previously reported that the Japanese right-wing forces have long been actively influencing the internet space. Thus, on some crowdsourcing platforms, users are rewarded for deliberately collecting or, with the help of AI, creating content about the allegedly “uncivilized Chinese,” or spreading claims that “The Nanking Massacre is a lie.” Thus, the distortion of historical facts and the incitement of hostile sentiments become tools for attracting traffic and generating profit.According to published statistics, since 2015, when China held for the first time a military parade in honor of the victory in the War of Resistance of the Chinese People against Japanese Aggression, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, under the slogan “strategic information dissemination abroad,” has allocated more than 56 billion yen in total for shaping public opinion directed against China.From financing “cultural exchanges” to supporting individual Western analytical centers, bloggers, and media — right-wing forces continue to spread radical and distorted narratives, contributing to the formation of a biased perception of history, especially among youth. Extreme statements appearing on the X platform are considered by many as manifestations of the consequences of such informational influence.
Self-deception and informational manipulation have long remained one of the characteristic methods of the Japanese authorities. In the 1930s, Japanese military circles, fabricating narratives such as “Chinese anti-Japanese sentiment” and the “Manchurian crisis,” stirred war hysteria in society and tried to create the appearance of the justification of aggression. After the start of the full-scale war against China, the Japanese authorities, through systematic propaganda and distortion of information, embellished the actions of the army and blackened Chinese soldiers and civilians, trying to justify their own crimes.After the end of the war, Japan, in the opinion of critics, was unable to fully rethink certain pages of its history. In Japanese society, attempts to deny or soften historical facts related to aggression still periodically arise. Against this background, some forces strive to present Japan primarily as a “victim of nuclear bombings,” which, in the opinion of many observers, obscures the country’s responsibility for the war crimes of the past.
The issue of the crime of Japanese militarism has long received a clear assessment from the international community and history. Although certain forces in Japan have tried to justify or distort the past, historical facts do not change because of this. The more persistently attempts are made to evade historical responsibility, the more this undermines the trust of the international community.
Please note; This information is raw content obtained directly from the information source. It represents an accurate report of what the source asserts and does not necessarily reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.