The mayor of Japan’s Nagoya City has drawn fire from China by denying a massacre of civilians by Japanese soldiers in Nanjing in 1937 during the Chinese-Japanese war.

Japanese media reported that Nagoya Mayor Takashi Kawamura had told a visiting official from China’s Communist Party on Monday that he doubts the Nanjing Massacre happened.

Kawamura also said he believes that combat took place and not the mass murder of civilians by Japanese soldiers.

China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told reporters Monday that Kawamura’s remarks are disagreeable and Japanese government officials need a lesson in history.

The Nanjing Massacre was the genocide of some 300-thousand Chinese people by Japanese soldiers from December 1937 through January 1938.