BEIJING — China wants to make World War II a key part of a trip by President Xi Jinping to Germany next month, much to Berlin’s discomfort, diplomatic sources said, as Beijing tries to use German atonement for its wartime past to embarrass Japan.

China has increasingly compared Germany and its public contrition for the Nazi regime with Japan, where repeated official apologies for wartime suffering are sometimes undercut by contradictory comments by conservative politicians.

Ties between the two Asian rivals worsened when Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visited Tokyo’s Yasukuni shrine on Dec 26, which China sees as a symbol of Tokyo’s past militarism because it honours wartime leaders along with millions of the war dead.

Mr Xi will visit Germany late next month, as well as France, the Netherlands and Belgium, Beijing-based diplomats said. China’s Foreign Ministry declined to comment on Mr Xi’s agenda as the trip has yet to be formally announced.

“China wants a strong focus on World War II when Mr Xi visits Germany and Germany is not happy,” said one diplomatic source who has been briefed on China’s plans for the trip.

The German government declined to comment. However, the diplomatic sources said Germany did not want to get dragged into the dispute between China and Japan, and dislikes China constantly bringing up Germany’s painful past.

Another diplomatic source with knowledge of the trip said China had proposed Mr Xi visit the Holocaust memorial in Berlin. When that was immediately rejected by Germany, Beijing suggested Mr Xi go to Berlin’s Neue Wache memorial, which honours war dead but not recognised war criminals.

Germany does not want the negative legacy of the war to dominate or take centre stage during the state visit, the source added, explaining the objection to the Holocaust memorial visit.

China wanted German officials to go to Japan and tell them how to cope with history, the source added. It is not clear what Mr Xi wants to say about the war while in Germany, which has strong commercial links with China, but Chinese leaders have mentioned the subject in recent visits to Europe.

In 2012, then-Premier Wen Jiabao went to the former Auschwitz death camp, located in what was then Nazi-occupied Poland, saying: “Only those who remember history can build a good future.”

Japanese leaders have repeatedly apologised for suffering caused by the country’s wartime actions, including a landmark 1995 apology by then-Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama. However, remarks by conservative politicians periodically cast doubt on Tokyo’s sincerity.

Taking questions in Parliament on Thursday, Mr Abe said his government would stick by past apologies. “As I’ve said before, in the past many nations, especially those in Asia, suffered great damage and pain due to our nation. Our government recognises this, as have the governments that have gone before, and will continue this stance,” Mr Abe said.

Sino-Japanese ties are also affected by a territorial row and regional rivalry. Relations chilled after a feud over disputed islands in the East China Sea flared in 2012.

Some experts say China’s campaign against Japan has helped Beijing shift some of the debate away from its growing military assertiveness in Asia, including double-digit defence spending increases and the creation of an Air Defence Identification Zone in the East China Sea that was condemned by Tokyo and Washington.

Asked about China’s comparison of Germany and Japan, a Japanese Foreign Ministry spokesman said Japan would continue to tread a peaceful path and China’s recent provocative actions were raising concerns in the region.

“We have to reflect on the past, but cannot live only in the past,” spokesman Masaru Sato said.

“Reconciliation requires not only a former perpetrator’s sincerity and gesture of atonement, but also a former victim’s acceptance,” he said, adding Tokyo wants dialogue with Beijing. Reuters