DHAKA: Chinese state media kept up the heat on Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe on the first day of 2014, urging him to learn from Germany in dealing with divisive historical issues.

‘Abe’s conspicuous lack of historical honesty contrasts shamefully with the courage and vision of late West German Chancellor Willy Brandt,’ the official Xinhua news agency said in a commentary Wednesday.

It highlighted Brandt’s 1970 visit to a monument in Poland to victims of the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, a revolt by Jews against deportations to Nazi death camps that was brutally crushed by German troops, when he famously fell to his knees.

What Mr Brandt did was a ‘spontaneous act of genuine repentance’, Xinhua added, reports The Straits Times.

BDST: 2025 HRS, JAN 01, 2014
Edited by Robab Rosan, Current Affairs Editor