As a Chinese citizen, I don't think Chinese feud with Japanese/Korea lasted as long as 1000 years. In the past, China was a nation much greater in terms of economics and military power compared to Japan and Korea. In fact, Korea used to be loosely a part of China (every year it gives goods to China in return for protection), and although I am not exactly sure about Japan, it was kind of the same deal in terms of power balance. In the past, it was really the Chinese who "bullied" Japan, just like how a powerful nation like US do nowadays around the world. Sure, there were some skirmishes between Japan and China, but in the past Chinese always regarded Japanese as barbarians because, well, they used to be much less advanced in everything.
The hate of Chinese on Japan really started in the recent 100-200 years of history, starting with Japan as a part of 8-nations army that invaded the last dynasty of Imperial China. Afterward, China was divided by civil wars so technology development backtracked while Japan advanced. A lot of things happened even before WWII, usually Chinese government losing a war and is forced to sign an unequal treaty that gives gold, silver, and land to Japan. However, do note that in this period it is not just Japanese that bully China. Britain, Germany, US, France, etc. all the more powerful nations do the same thing to China and with greater frequency.
So what makes China "hate" Japan the most? Well, yes, like posters have said, the second world war, Japanese army killed a lot of Chinese civilians, Massacre of Nanjing, etc. 30 million dead makes China the country with the most casualty in WWII, and most of them civilians against their will, almost all of whom killed by Japanese imperial army (and some of them killed by the Japanese-controlled-Chinese-government army, btw). This kind of memory is not easily forgotten in any case, and in some ways should never be forgotten (in the way of always praying for peace because the war is so devastating). The hate stayed because the communist party (that won the civil war after WWII) focused on these kinds of propaganda . Why? Also like above posters have said, if all citizens focus on a common enemy, then they would focus less on the bad things that's happening within the country. Sort of like the Lelouch ideal, except it is for gov't control rather than world peace. To be fair, Japanese is pretty much doing the same things nowadays of trying to certain extent shift citizens' antagonism toward China and Korea, so that citizens don't notice how bad their economy has really been. I suspect China will be practising more of this in the future as well seeing as Chinese economy is projected to slow down.
And fyi, all I am saying is that these kind of sentiments kind of exist, but obviously not all Chinese hate Japanese. In fact, most Chinese don't hate Japanese, or wouldn't make hating Japanese part of their daily agenda. I would agree that more people dislike Japanese gov't though. For Chinese citizens, there are very good reasons for that. To this day, Japanese government still worships their past leaders in their sacred temple, including few of the commanders who orchestrated Japanese invasion and massacre in China and is put on trial for doing so, for example. Though, it's not like Chinese people living in China not satisfied with Chinese government doesn't exist, lol.
To close this post, and truly answer OP's question, there is nothing inherent contradictory about some Chinese loving Japanese anime and some Chinese absolutely despising Japanese (government) in general. China is a big country. It is the biggest country in the world. There are 1.4 billion people in China, making up 20% of the population on Earth. People who think differently are bound to exist, especially given a very relevant historical reason for doing so.
tl;dr
> the "hate" really started in the recent 100-200 years
> WWII is the main reason, when Japanese murdered a lot of Chinese citizens
> not everyone in China hate Japan; all sorts of different people have all sorts of different opinions |