Tower of peace or sin? Why China demands that a Japanese wartime monument be demolished

Mainland Chinese state media has called for the demolition of a wartime monument in Japan, rekindling a long-standing source of bilateral tension as Beijing and Tokyo remain locked in a diplomatic row over Taiwan.

Yuyuan Tantian, a social media account run by Chinese state broadcaster CCTV, said on Saturday that Japan seized more than 370 stones from the countries it invaded during the second world war – mostly from China – and used them to build Hakko Ichiu Tower, which the account described as “a tower of sin” promoting militarist ideology.

The Yuyuan Tantian post featured a two-minute video about a stone widely believed to be a cultural relic that, according to the clip, the Japanese took from the city of Nanjing after the Nanking massacre of 1937 and is now embedded in the tower.

“After its defeat, Japan not only failed to demolish this symbol of militarism or return the stones it had taken but instead cloaked the tower in the guise of ‘peace’,” the post said, referring to the Japanese monument’s official name, the Tower of Peace.

What is Hakko Ichiu Tower?

Hakko Ichiu Tower, situated in Heiwadai Park in the southwestern city of Miyazaki, was completed in 1940, when Japan celebrated the 2,600th anniversary of its imperial origins.