《南京！南京！》City of Life and Death

HOSTILITY toward Japan runs high in China. The history of the harsh occupation during the 1930s and 1940s is neither forgotten nor forgiven. So it should come as little surprise that “City of Life and Death”, a new film about one of the most gruesome chapters of that history, the 1937 Japanese assault on the city of Nanjing, has done well in China, earning $10m in the first week since its release. But it must have irked Japan’s prime minister, Taro Aso, that the film was released on the eve of his first visit to China since taking office last September.

The range of issues confronting the two countries is daunting. Territorial disputes, North Korea’s continued dalliances with long-range missiles and nuclear bombs, and bilateral trade tensions demand attention, along with the global economic crisis and swine flu. But their shared past is always near the surface.

Mr Aso himself has helped keep it there. A week before the visit he donated a potted plant to Tokyo’s Yasukuni shrine, where Japan’s war dead are honoured, including 14 convicted war criminals from the second world war. Unlike some of Mr Aso’s predecessors, he did not visit the shrine himself. But the move was not well received in China. Nor, however, was it met with the sort of scathing rebuke that was once obligatory.

In years past Chinese leaders and the state-controlled press were quick to use such incidents to whip up popular resentment against Japan. Spurred on by the press (and by Japan’s own refusal fully to confront its wartime past), angry Chinese were unobstructed as they organised boycotts of Japanese goods and demonstrated, sometimes violently, against Japanese institutions.

Official anti-Japan rhetoric was noticeably toned down in the two years before last year’s Beijing Olympics, perhaps out of a desire to ensure a sportsmanlike reception for Japanese athletes and spectators. The games are now past, but the pressing need for a modicum of harmony in which to navigate the financial crisis together may be enough to keep the lid on all that unhappy history.

For Chinese who have seen “City of Life and Death”, what stands out most is its sympathetic portrayal of a Japanese soldier. This is a novel twist for Chinese treatments of the subject, and the film’s official sanction suggests a desire to promote more nuanced views. But the time may not be ripe. Lu Chuan, the film’s director, has received death threats and accusations of being a traitor and a stooge for Japanese revisionists.