Hyundai Tucson Urges To Apologize In China

Hyundai Tucson
Hyundai Tucson

A black Hyundai Tucson, seen on a highway south of Beijing in April 2006. The Hyundai has a very interesting sticker on the back, saying, in English and Japanese: “Japan apalogize to NanKing!” with the date 1937.12.13.

This refers to the Rape of Nanking, where Japanese troops murdered up to 300.000 Chinese in by far the worst war crime of the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945). Nanking is the old Western spelling for Nanjing.

Whenever political tensions between China and Japan flare up, and that happens a lot, this sort of stickers starts to pup up everywhere. And things can get out of hand pretty bad; just one year later, in 2009, many Japanese car makers were forced to shut down their factories in China during a rather heavy disturbance in relations.

Also note the hearth-shaped One China sticker. The first generation Hyundai Tucson was made in China by Beijing-Hyundai from 2005 until 2017. Originally, it was available with a four-pot and a 2.7 liter V6, but the latter was later deleted.

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