During the weeklong National Day holiday earlier this month, a bicycle rider in Lishui, Zhejiang province, was seen wearing an Imperial Japanese Army hat.

On being alerted, the police stopped the cyclist, a middle school student, and told him never to wear that hat again.

On Sept 27, a car with a logo saying "Unit 731 of the Japanese Army" drove through the streets of Nantong, Jiangsu province. The local police later detained the driver for 15 days.

These are just two examples of people idolizing the Imperial Japanese Army. On social networking sites, such people are called "spiritual Japanese", because they idolize imperial Japan, which invaded China and inflicted untold suffering on the nation and its people.

Such acts also amount to contempt for China and the Chinese people who bravely fought against the Japanese invaders to liberate the country.

From the time they occupied the northeastern provinces in 1931 till their unconditional surrender in World War II in 1945, the Japanese forces killed millions of Chinese people. It was only after sacrificing millions of lives that China finally drove the invaders away.

Therefore, to trivialize that part of history is to be blind to facts and insensitive to those who laid down their lives and those who fought against the invaders.

Law enforcers should deal with such issues in a firm manner, so as to discourage others from committing similar offenses.

Some argue that those indulging in such behavior are ignorant, but that is a lame excuse because the Japanese aggression is part of the history taught in primary and secondary schools, and no one who has completed compulsory education can claim to be in the dark about it.

Thankfully, "spiritual Japanese" are very few in number and their actions are causing anger on social networking sites, showing that people in general are conscious of the fundamental values we must hold dear.