The Chinese Foreign Ministry has issued a public statement that strongly urges Japan to stop its militaristic allusions if it desires to earn the trust of the global community.
Diplomatic tensions continue between China and Japan as the war of words between the two Asian countries escalate. It even led to a metaphorical twist, using fictional parallelism with a Harry Potter antagonist.
In a recently published article in the Daily Telegraph, Japan's ambassador to the United Kingdom, Keiichi Hayashi was quoted saying that China is taking a gamble in playing the role of Voldemort in Asia. The ambassador accused China of escalating the military tensions and arms race while Japan maintains a non-provocative stance.
A spokesperson from the Chinese Foreign Ministry has responded by saying that the statements of the Japanese ambassador show arrogance, irrationality and ignorance. The spokesperson has pointed out that history is clear about the war crimes committed by Japanese militarists. These crimes of aggression are many and cannot be denied. More than 35 million Chinese became casualties of Japan's aggression in the past.
It seemed that the Voldemort parallelism comment made by the Japanese ambassador to the UK was in response to the the previous statement made by the Chinese ambassador to the UK. It will be recalled that Ambassador Liu Xiaoming has earlier made some critical remarks about the visit of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to the Yasukuni Shrine. Many Asian countries, including China, consider the shrine as a monument honoring war criminals.
Following the Harry Potter parallelism, the Chinese ambassador to the United Kingdom was quoted in the media on Jan. 1 saying that the Yasukuni Shrine is a type of horcrux that signifies one of the darkest episodes in Japanese history. This was in reference to the Voldermort comment.
A horcrux is a fitting comparison because in the Harry Potter novels and movies, horcruxes are any object with magical powers, holding the souls or pieces of the soul of evil warlocks and witches, which enable them to become immortals.