Nagoya Mayor Takashi Kawamura riled China on Monday by telling a visiting official he doubts the 1937 Nanjing Massacre ever happened.

The 63-year-old Nagoya mayor, whose father was in Nanjing when the war ended in 1945, told Liu Zhiwei, a member of the Chinese Communist Party's Nanjing City Standing Committee, that he believes only "conventional acts of combat" took place there, not the mass murder and rape attributed in history books to the Imperial Japanese Army.

"Why were people in Nanjing kind to Japanese soldiers only eight years after the incident?" Kawamura asked, referring to his father's memory of the event. "I could go to Nanjing and attend a debate on the history of the city, if necessary," he said.

The mayor also said he is grateful to the people of Nanjing and willing to maintain friendly ties. The two cities established a sister city relationship in 1978 through a candid exchange of views.

Liu did not challenge Kawamura's view of history at the meeting and shook hands with the mayor while exchanging gifts with him. But Zhu Chengshan, head of the Memorial Hall of the Victims in the Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders, slammed Kawamura's remarks as "nonsense."

In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei also expressed displeasure with Kawamura's comments, saying at a regular press conference that China "cannot agree with such a view" and there is "irrefutable evidence" proving the Nanjing Massacre occurred.

In September 2009, Kawamura told the Nagoya Municipal Assembly he had doubts about the death toll from the Nanjing Massacre. China says there were more than 300,000 victims, but Japanese academics have issued estimates ranging from 20,000 to 200,000.