Relations between China and Japan are rarely better than acidic, and last week brought another reminder of how easily they can turn venomous. In Tokyo about 150 parliamentarians attended the Yasukuni shrine, which pays homage to hundreds of Japanese war criminals as well as the country’s war dead, drawing shrieks of protest from Beijing. Yet the persistent enmity between the two countries is bewildering to many outsiders, rooted in squabbles so obscure that they can even look manufactured.
中日关系大多数时候都很差,而最近的事件再一次提醒我们,双方之间很容易就会变得充满怨恨。在东京,约150名国会议员参拜了靖国神社(Yasukuni shrine),那里不仅供奉着日本的战争死难者,也供奉着数百名日本战犯。此事激起了北京方面的严厉抗议。然而,中日两国之间持续的敌意让许多外界人士感到不解,这种敌意源于一些争执,而这些争执是那么晦暗不明,甚至可能让人觉得像是人为捏造的。