Chinese President Xi Jinping highlighted Japan's brutality against China and South Korea in the last century during a speech on the final day of his visit to Seoul today amid worries in both countries about recent nationalism in Tokyo.
Japan colonised the Korean Peninsula and occupied parts of China, often brutally, before and during World War II. Many elderly people in China and South Korea still harbour strong resentment against Japan.
Earlier this week, Japan's government approved a reinterpretation of its pacifist postwar constitution that allows its military a larger international role.
"Our two countries had big suffering when (Japan) launched barbarous aggression on China and Korea and annexed and occupied the Korean Peninsula in the first half of the 20th century," he said.
He noted that in the late 16th century a Chinese dynasty sent troops to help a Korean dynasty defeat invading Japanese troops.
"Both countries' nationals ... Walked shoulder to shoulder to battle grounds together 400 years ago" when the Japanese invasion happened, Xi said speaking through an interpreter.
China assisted North Korea and fought against South Korea during the 1950-53 Korean War, while American-led UN troops fought alongside South Korea.
South Korea and China established diplomatic relations in 1992. The countries now have booming trade and share concerns about Japan's more assertive military ambitions and what critics see as recent attempts by Tokyo to obscure its bloody past.
