Apple’s forthcoming iOS 6 promises a raft of new features for Chinese users, including expanded Chinese language support and integration with services such as Baidu search, Sina Weibo, Youku and Tudou. In addition, nationalist iPad users can now enjoy a (loosely) simulated invasion of the disputed Diaoyu, or Senkaku, Islands. From Paul Mozur at China Real Time Report:
“As Chinese we should unite together to defend the Diaoyu Islands and completely defend our homeland. Let us annihilate any attempt by the Japanese devils to come ashore our islands, throw them back to the Japanese isles, defend the Diaoyutai…” reads the intro to the game on iTunes.
For ZQGame, this isn’t their first stab at making a few kuai off of some of China’s citizens’ apparent zeal for conflict with its neighbors. On the company’s website are several promotions for online chapters of the company’s banner game set in China during the Second World War, including one called Nanjing Trial that puts gamers in Nanjing during the infamous Nanjing Massacre to fight off Japanese. The game’s tagline spells out the content clearly: “Return to Nanjing, pay back blood with blood.”
While the game’s theme may help it win a beachhead in the crowded App Store, Beijing has occasionally reined in anti-Japanese sentiment in the past, as Mozur points out, while Apple’s history of blocking politically-charged apps is also mixed.
