Buddhism takes the Buddha as its leader, and its main teachings is "Compassion" and "Wisdom." Since ancient times, there have been many wars in the history, in which it is inevitable that there will be killings in the war. In the case of Buddhist precepts, to become a Buddhist, the most basic thing is to take Triple Gem and Five Precepts, in which the first is not to kill. It means not only passively not killing, but also actively protect lives, which is the most important fundamental of Buddhism. During the war between China and Japan in 20th century , Chinese senior monks received the wrong news deliberately publicized by Japan. Chinese senior monks believe Japanese Buddhism is the branch of Chinese Buddhism, so Japanese Buddhism should not persecute them, especially monks have nothing to do with war. For this kind of reasons, Chinese senior monks insist to stay in their own monasteries during the war. This is long-standing burden of Chinese Buddhist tradition. Stimulated by the war, young monks have different views from these senior monks, that think of they should help to resistance during the war. Under a variety of ideas, the Chinese Buddhist community at that time, whether the monks were involved, and if want to, how to do it, and so forth, these issues became the important points of discussion within the Chinese Buddhist circles at that time. Due to the context of history, Japanese Buddhism is mostly based on the premise of protecting the country to assist in the war. Because of the historical context, Japanese Buddhism mostly takes protecting the country as the premise to assist the war, to delete and modify the Buddhist doctrine, as a coordination with the national policy, to form the so-called "imperial Buddhism". Japan rationalized the war by distorting the teachings of Buddhism, which is completely different from the position of the Chinese Buddhist community. From the monks' interpretation of Buddhist teachings, we can observe the differences in their organizational structures, the unique characteristics of Buddhism developed, and the great influence on Chinese and Japanese Buddhism under the political power. When religion becomes the operating tool of state politics, its doctrine is often distorted or converted, and the nature of religion has also changed.
