March 15th, 2011
“China's 15-person search-and-rescue team was dispatched speedily to the Japanese quake zone. This was in part to reciprocate the help given by a Japanese military team that aided China after its own massive earthquake in Sichuan three years ago. As the first Japanese troops in China since the end of the brutal Japanese occupation, their presence was politically charged.”
"But many Chinese, like 66-year-old Zhang Qinglong, are conflicted about this aid.
"From the humanitarian perspective, I support it," he says. "But from a historical perspective, I do not. People my age believe Japan ought to be wiped out. During the Japanese occupation, they killed so many Chinese people."
[analysis]
Complementing the Xinhua News Agency press release, an NPR episode from March 15th, 2011 interviewed Chinese civilians about their perspective on China's generous gesture regarding the provision of humanitarian aid — a notable example is the provided testimony of Zhang Qinglong, a 66 year old Chinese national at the time. He specifically told NPR that, "‘From the humanitarian perspective, I support it,’ he says. ‘But from a historical perspective, I do not. People my age believe Japan ought to be wiped out. During the Japanese occupation, they killed so many Chinese people.’”
Therefore, this suggests that even with normalized relations, the shadow of Japan's imperialist legacy soured the perception of such efforts as inherently political; the generous gesture of aid provision was inevitably seen as the Chinese government somewhat conceding to Japan for a geopolitical advantage.