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Forces that led Japan to kill millions in China haven’t died
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A nation, whether China or Japan, cannot fully understand itself or find its position in the world unless it levels a steady gaze on the glories and disgraces of its past.
China has set two memorial days to mark victory in the anti-Japanese war and mourn Nanjing Massacre victims. They will remember the horror of a crime, commemorate our heroic forefathers, speak of China’s responsibility for a peaceful world, and serve as a reminder that the flag of justice shall never fall into the shadow of militarism.
Seventy-seven years ago, Japanese invaders captured Nanjing, then China’s capital, and started 40-odd days of slaughter from December 13, 1937. More than 300,000 people were murdered and given no proper graves. Their tomb is our memory.
Sixty-nine years ago, the Chinese people embraced their victory over Japan on September 3, 1945 after suffering more than 35 million casualties. We owe our martyrs a promise that they did not die in vain and that memories of their brave fight against Japanese aggression will be carried on by their children and grandchildren.
China’s war of resistance against Japanese aggression was an important part of the World Anti-Fascist War. For a long time, the Chinese contained the main forces of Japanese militarism, annihilating more than 1.5 million Japanese troops. In remembering, China keeps firmly in mind the foreign friends who laid down their lives on the battlefield of China, who helped Chinese refugees during the Nanjing Massacre, who opened up the Hump Route to deliver strategic supplies and who traveled thousands of miles to China to provide medical assistance.
Setting memorial days fits with the usual practice of the international community in that national memorials have been held annually at the Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland, Russia’s World War II Memorial Stele and the Pearl Harbor Memorial Museum of the United States.
Scourge of war
With deep memories of the scourge of war, the Chinese people are aware of the value of peace and the importance of peaceful development, the only road to achieve national prosperity. However, peace cannot be safeguarded by vague words, but by actions, especially when it faces direct threats from the rising militarism that used to trample human dignity and justice underfoot.
More than six decades after the Potsdam Proclamation was issued to the fascist forces, the influence of those who deceived and misled the people of Japan into embarking on world conquest has not been eliminated. Japan as a defeated country failed to let the world feel safe by publicly challenging the post-war order under the excuse of becoming a so-called “normal country.”
With a distorted attitude toward history, the current Japanese government refuses to admit the nature, let alone scale, of its war crimes during WWII. And that refusal has spread beyond the government to its broadcasting organization, whose board member even denied the Nanjing Massacre.
The Japanese government challenges China’s sovereignty over the Diaoyu Islands, an act that is in open defiance of the Cairo Declaration, an important international document in handling Japan’s aggression. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s visits to the shrine honoring Class-A war criminals has caused a growing chill in its relations with neighboring countries.
The world also has reason to be vigilant as Japan now attempts to reinterpret its pacifist Constitution and lift a ban on Japan exercising the right of collective self-defense. A post-war order of peace will be impossible until militarism is driven from the world.
As a peace-loving nation, China has reaffirmed its policy of observing bilateral political documents and promoting Sino-Japanese friendship.
It is still not too late for Japan to learn two words from its imperialist history: Never again. However, if Japan continues to turn a deaf ear to the call of peace and warning bells against its militarist past, it will have no place in the world.
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