China ordered tourism agencies and its nationals to boycott a Japanese hotel chain found to be stocking books that openly deny the Nanjing Massacre.

The National Tourism Administration slammed the hotel chain APA on Tuesday for the distribution of books in its hotel rooms in Japan that deny the Nanjing Massacre (1937), in which 300,000 Chinese civilians were killed by Japanese troops during World War II. The book also denies the existence of "comfort women," women from China and other countries forced to become sex slaves for Japanese soldiers.

The administration requests all Chinese travel agencies and e-commerce travel services to stop cooperation with the hotel chain, and called on Chinese tourists and tour groups visiting Japan to boycott the firm.

APA posted a response on its official website, which said it would not remove the books from guest rooms nor will it change its policies. One branch hotel in Sapporo which will accommodate guests for the Asian Winter Games in February said it may consider removing the books if the organizing committee makes an official request, Kyodo News reported Tuesday.

The controversy first broke when media reported about the books earlier this month. APA Group CEO Toshio Motoya, who authored the book The Real History of Japan - Theoretical Modern History, on Saturday refused to remove the books and said the controversy was premeditated. He further angered Chinese tourists by saying they only made up 5 percent of the chain's customers and that he did not expect the row to affect business.

"[The move] shows blatant provocation and violates basic ethics of tourism," said Zhang Lizhong, spokesperson for China National Tourism Administration.

Up to 98 percent of Net users support a boycott of the hotel chain in Japan, according to a poll conducted by huanqiu.com.

Motoya is also the deputy director of a support group for Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, and the "right wing" orientation of the organization has been exposed on Japanese social media.

"Unlike an exchange of words, China has taken strong measures this time in response to the escalating rightist provocation," Zhou Yongsheng, vice director of the Japanese Studies Center at the China Foreign Affairs University, told the Global Times.

However, the move should not be expanded to other Japanese firms unless they also openly display such tendencies, given the sluggish trade between China and Japan, Zhou noted.

Rightists emboldened

The open defiance against history by APA has resonated with Japan's right-wing forces. Takashi Kawamura, mayor of Japanese city Nagoya, on Monday said "There was no killing of civilians in Nanjing," Japan's Asahi Shimbun reported. "If that [Nanjing Massacre] is real, then all Japanese people shall go to Nanjing and kneel," he said.

On Tuesday, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying told the Global Times that Kawamura should keep to his word to kneel down and apologize. Whoever distorts history and hurts Chinese feelings is intolerable and must pay for it, Hua noted.

"The increasingly rightist Japanese government led by Abe has emboldened the right-wing politicians out of office, whereas in the past the Japanese government did not publicly endorse rightists' remarks," Hu Lingyuan, a professor with the Center for Japanese Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai, told the Global Times.

The rise of rightist sentiment in and outside the Japanese government will further hurt Sino-Japanese ties, Hu said.

Japan's Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Koichi Hagiuda tried to downplay the incident on Tuesday, saying China and Japan should work together on common issues facing the international community, rather than focusing too much on the "unhappy past," Reuters reported.

"The Japanese government's equivocal stance demonstrates that it is Japan that is entangled in wartime history," said Lü Yaodong, director of the Institute of Japanese Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

The slavery of "comfort women" and the Nanjing Massacre are serious crimes against humanity committed because of Japanese militarism during WWII, which is internationally recognized as historical fact, Hua said.