Celebrities must heed their history lessons

Zhang Zhehan, a popular domestic entertainment star, has sparked public outrage as photos were posted on social media on Friday showing him posing at Japan's notorious Yasukuni Shrine, which honors some of Japan's convicted Class-A war criminals.

There were also photos of Zhang attending a wedding at Nogi Shrine, a Japanese shrine that honors the notorious imperial Japanese military officer Maresuke Nogi, who organized a massacre of innocent civilians in Lüshunkou during the First Sino-Japanese War (1894-95). He wrote a poem that vowed to "break all Chinese territories", and took the position of "governor" of Taiwan, which Japan had seized.

Zhang apologized later that day, saying he felt "ashamed of my ignorance, and deeply apologize for my previous misbehavior".

There is no way to know whether he knows about Nogi, but all Chinese know of the Yasukuni Shrine.

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga offered sacrificial articles to the Yasukuni Shrine on Sunday, the day of Japanese surrender. Some of his cabinet members and parliament members also visited the shrine on the same day. China has already launched serious representations to Japan about this as this reflects Japanese government's wrong attitude to the war.

Zhang has a full team of advisers. Even if he is ignorant of the shrines' backgrounds as he claimed, someone should have informed him about the sensitivity of these places and ensured he avoided them during his tour of Japan.

The fallout from his enforced history lesson is more than a dozen brands, food brand Hsu Fu Chi, child drink brand Wahaha, and snack brand Be& Cherry have all terminated their contracts with Zhang. Even the Chinese branch of Japanese food enterprise Ezaki Glico has dropped him. These enterprises at least recognize what's right and wrong.

That will be a huge loss to the star. Zhang's crisis should send a warning to all Chinese celebrities to respect ethical and legal norms as well as national dignity. It is a historical fact that the nation suffered from the Japanese invasions, and that should not be forgotten.