( CNN ) -- A state-run Chinese newspaper expressed relief Monday that senior Japanese officials had dismissed the country 's air force chief after he denied Japan 's aggression before and during World War II . General Toshio Tamogami . Gen. Toshio Tamogami lost his job as chief of staff for Japan 's Air Self-Defense Force , the Ministry of Defense said , after saying in an essay that `` it is certainly a false accusation to say that our country was an aggressor nation . '' Japanese troops invaded China in 1937 and were widely accused of gross human rights abuses , including raping tens of thousands of girls and women and killing several hundred thousand others in what has come to be called `` The Rape of Nanking . '' Imperial Japan also invaded several other Asian nations , leading to the death and misery for an untold number . Two former Japanese prime ministers have apologized for Japanese aggression before and during World War II . Yet China has long accused of elements within Japan of trying to whitewash the Japanese atrocities committed before and during World War II . `` The denial of the aggression history by Toshio Tamogami comes in as an element of disharmony , '' the state-run China Daily said a commentary Monday . `` Yet , as long as the Japanese government has a right attitude to this question , the smooth development of ties between the two neighbors will not be derailed by such discordant notes . '' Tamogami 's essay , published late last week , also stirred controversy in South Korea . Japan controlled Korea from 1910 to 1945 . Its military is accused of forcing roughly 200,000 women , mainly from Korea and China , to serve as sex slaves -- they were known euphemistically as `` comfort women '' -- for soldiers in the Imperial Army . The South Korean foreign ministry criticized Tamogami 's commentary in a statement published by Yonhap , the South Korean news agency . `` His claim is distorting history , '' the statement said . `` International friendly relations are based on repentance for past wrongdoings and learning a lesson from history , '' Tamogami 's essay won first prize in a competition called the `` True Perspective of Modern and Contemporary History . '' Several Japanese leaders have apologized in recent years for past Japanese aggression . In 2005 , then-Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi apologized for his country 's role in World War II on the 60th anniversary of the war 's end . He vowed Japan would never again take `` the path to war . '' Japan agreed to surrender on August 15 , 1945 , after U.S. planes dropped atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki . The formal surrender was signed September 2 . In 1995 , on the 50th anniversary of the war 's end , then-Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama also expressed Tokyo 's deep remorse and heartfelt apology for the damage and suffering it inflicted on its Asian neighbors . And in 2001 , Koizumi apologized for Japanese treatment of Koreans during its occupation of the Korean peninsula during the first half of the 20th century . In a statement , Koizumi acknowledged the `` enormous damage '' inflicted by Japan 's military `` by colonization and invasion '' during the conflict . `` We must take this historical fact of such very sincerely , and I would like to express keen remorse and heartfelt apologies , '' Koizumi said . `` I would like to also express our deep condolences to the victims inside and outside of Japan during World War II . '' At the height of the conflict , much of southeast Asia , China and the Pacific islands were in Japanese hands .
Chief of Japan 's air force dismissed for saying Japan was not aggressor in WWII . China , South Korea criticize published essay of General Toshio Tamogami . Two previous Japanese prime ministers have apologized for aggression .