Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday implicitly scolded Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's view of Japan's wartime history at a reception in Beijing following a massive military parade commemorating the end of World War II.
Without naming Abe, Xi said postwar generations "should be with correct historical views and take the lessons of history to heart" and that any denial of Japan's war of aggression against China would be an "insult to human conscience and inevitably lose the trust of people in the world."
Last month, in a statement to mark the war's end, Abe said, "We must not let our children, grandchildren and even further generations to come, who have nothing to do with that war, be predestined to apologize. Still, even so, we Japanese, across generations, must squarely face the history of the past."