BEIJING – Chinese officials are calling for deeper ties with Japan on the 80th anniversary of the Nanking Massacre.
Chinese President Xi Jinping led a citywide minute of silence Wednesday but did not speak as Yu Zhengsheng, head of China's parliamentary advisory body, urged China and Japan to draw lessons from history and look forward to the future.
China's government and a 1946 international postwar tribunal say at least 200,000 civilians were killed by Japanese troops entering China's then capital in December 1937 following bitter street fighting in Shanghai.
Some right-wing Japanese politicians have downplayed the death poll or denied outright that the atrocity happened.
A Japanese hotel chain attracted condemnation in January when it distributed a book questioning Japan's use of forced sex workers and calling the Nanking Massacre a fake.
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