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China bans sale

of toy WWII

warships

BEIJING: A Chinese city has banned the sale of toy Japanese and German World War Two warships, branding them an insult to the nation's feelings and dignity, Xinhua news agency said on Thursday.

Authorities in Chongqing, capital of southwestern Sichuan province, had seized 250 plastic models of World War Two Japanese and German battleships since the weekend, it said.

The search would go on until all "invaders' warships" had been found, it said.

The crackdown began after a shop criticised by a local newspaper for selling the toys refused to remove them, saying the world was at peace and the past should be forgotten.

Local citizens criticised shops that continued selling the toys, with teachers and historians saying it was an insult to the nation's feelings and dignity, Xinhua said.

"We shall never forget the countless crimes the Japanese invaders committed against our people in World War Two," Song Xinghua, associate professor of history at Chongqing Normal College, was quoted as saying.

China harbours deep anger towards Japan for atrocities committed during its invasion of the 1930s and 1940s, including the Nanjing massacre in which hundreds of thousands of Chinese people were killed by Japanese soldiers in the southern city.-Reuter