According to Global Times, at least seven Chinese cities decided not to celebrate the popular event that every summer attracts the diaspora of the neighboring country and Chinese citizens interested in that culture.

The Matsuri festival is a kind of carnival in which visitors come with family and friends, dressed up in Japanese clothes and eat their typical food.

The cancellations this year come as a result of the revelations that the Xuanzang temple in eastern Nanjing made memorials to the ihai of Japanese officials Hisao Tani, Matsui Iwane, Takeshi Noda and Tanaka Junyoshi from 2018 to 2022, but withdrew them in the face of a wake-up call in February.

Those tablets are usually made of wood and contain the Buddhist name that a person receives posthumously for the veneration of his or her spirit.

China does not forget the crimes committed by the Japanese invasion from 1931 to 1945 and especially the Nanjing Massacre, which occurred on December 13, 1937.

Eight years ago, the National People’s Congress (Parliament) designated December 13 as the National Memorial Day for Nanjing Massacre Victims and the city became China’s first International City of Peace in September 2017.

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