Why China and Japan cannot put the war behind them
Chinese journalist Haining Liu explores why China and Japan still live under the shadow of the Second World War
Over the last two months, I travelled across Japan and China with a Japanese journalist, the BBC's Mariko Oi, to make a documentary on how history is taught in our two countries.
Our route took us to the scene of major battles, and to where the atrocities of the war between China and Japan occurred almost 80 years ago.
We wanted to ask whether the younger generation can free itself from the shadows of the past.
Haining Liu, left, and Mariko Oi reading Mariko's old history text-book
The journey coincided with another rise in tensions. We started on November 24, the day when China announced its Air Defence Identification Zone over the East Sea.
Not long after we finished, Shinzo Abe, the Japanese prime minister, visited the Yasukuni Shrine, kicking off another war of propaganda between the two sides.
We never saw eye-to-eye on many issues during the trip. And there were moments when I struggled both with my own emotions and ignorance and those of our interviewees.
When some Japanese nationalists told me the Nanjing Massacre never happened, and tried to stop me using the word massacre, I wanted to end their interviews. My family is from Nanjing. Both my father and grandfather were born there.
It was the moment when I had doubts over my own ability to recognize the disturbing differences in historic perceptions. I started this trip with open-mindedness. Well, at least, that was the objective. Yet in face of extreme denialism, I failed to separate emotions from rational thinking.
I wonder how my peers in China might react if they were in my position. Is it easier to tolerate if we know less? Or the contrary, as ignorance should never be the answer?
Taro Yayama, 81, a veteran foreign correspondent and academic, called Chinese protests against Japan "crazy" and said he could not understand why people who did not live through the war were so angry.
It was a question I was asked in Japan many times: Why are Chinese people still so angry?
In part, it is because the Nanjing Massacre has been categorised by some Japanese only as an "incident", when, according to Chinese records, more than 300,000 people died in the city in the winter of 1937.
Another reason is that the Chinese government has focused on "patriotic education" since the 1990s. There have been few mentions of Japan's apologies after the war, or the economic payments from Japan to help China's development after 1978.
There are also extravagant war dramas on Chinese television. If it were not for the close trade and cultural ties, tourism and indeed marriages between our two countries, I wonder whether the situation might have been even worse.
Mariko Oi, left, and Haining Liu at Mariko's old school, Sacred Heart
In Beijing, we spoke to Zheng Fulai, who was seven years old when the Japanese invaded in 1937. He remembered the roof of his house exploding and how he managed to escape with his mother and two-year-old sister through the woods at night. In the morning, he saw they were walking through hundreds of dead bodies.
He forgot nothing about what had happened but said it was not wise to keep holding a grudge. The consequences of hatred are too traumatic.
Hearing his story made me think about how little young Chinese learn about the history of the war, and about Japan. We might have memorised a few dates and names, but as a nation we have forgotten too much for younger Chinese to understand what happened.
For decades, the public in both countries has been blinded by misleading political agendas which serve military, diplomatic or ideological purposes.
We need a different approach before it is too late. We must dig into the taboos of our shared history and face the inconvenient truths. Honesty with each other is the first step to free us from the shadows of the past.
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